Head is a jungle, heart is an empty room
by duchessofdisaster
Summary: This is the story of Isobel Flemming's life from the age of thirteen, visiting Mystic Falls during her summer holidays, through to the moment she died burning in the Grove Hills cemetery. Various pairings Isobel with John, Alaric, Damon . Warnings on individual chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**Story summary:**

This is the story of Isobel Flemming's life from the age of thirteen, visiting Mystic Falls during her summer holidays, through to the moment she died burning in the Grove Hills cemetery.

The story follows canon (and tries to explain Isobel's actions in Seasons 1 and 2) and overlaps with Isobel's appearances in the show. The only departures are that Alaric is bisexual (enabling me to fit this story with the rest of my own canon) and because I was so far into the story when it happened, there is no examination of Mikael's appearance in Elena's early life.

I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

**Chapter summary:**

Isobel spent three summers at her Aunt Gen's house in Mystic Falls, falling sweetly in love with John Gilbert and learning what it means to be a woman. The third summer changed everything.

**Pairing**: Isobel/John.

**Warnings**: A very awkward teenage deflowering, which means technically underage (John is 17, Isobel is 15).

* * *

Inside each person's heart, there is a box. Each box contains a person's most secret self. The old lady sitting quietly at the corner window of a diner, her box might contain a pink tutu, courtesy of the little girl inside of her who danced and spun nearly a lifetime ago. Perhaps the angry teenaged girl sitting across from you on the bus has a gun in her box, a gun she plans to use on her classmates. The man sleeping under the bridge, down there close to the back of the grocery store, in his heart, in his box, there might be the memory of the father and husband he once thought he would be.

Isobel Flemming's box was full of masks. Costumes. Theatrical makeup. And she had no interest in the stage. She wore her costumes to survive in the world. Fitted and kitted out to get through today, or maybe this week, just however long it lasted for.

The costumes never lasted very long, before she would tear them from her body, burn them, dance in the cinders. When they were gone she would tear at her flesh as well, scratch at her face as she screamed at the indifferent universe.

And then she would collapse to the ground, hide to heal, until she dared open the box and find a new mask. Applied pancake makeup, perhaps added some glitter. Dark eyeliner to make her eyes look even more like the chasms she knew they were, or pretty pink lip gloss that could mark her as normal for a little while.

As a little girl, Isobel would try on her mother's dresses, scarves, high heeled shoes. Red lipstick obscenely scrawled across her mouth and too much Chanel no. 5, preening and prancing in front of the full-length mirror, reciting lines from the black and white movies her mother favored. She would insist her father dance with her, her toes balanced precariously on his, while her older sisters watched, perhaps envious.

Perhaps envious. Perhaps then, as now, they knew that a girl who could only walk around in the world wearing the most elaborate of costumes was not to be envied, but pitied.

* * *

There had to be a reason why Isobel, alone of her sisters, was shipped off to Mystic Falls to stay with her mother's cousin Genevieve – affectionately, Aunt Gen – for three summers in a row. Genevieve was an exotic creature as well, and Isobel liked to think her mother knew she needed an education on smoking cigarettes from a long filter, mixing Brandy Alexanders by the jugful, in a kitchen where the wallpaper was faded to a soft dream of roses, except where the television sat in front of it. Because the other option – that she was shipped off to Mystic Falls for three summers in a row because her own family needed a break – was too painful to think about.

A lot of things were too painful to think about, Isobel discovered, but most of these things could be dealt with by the judicious application of a soft silk scarf or another spray of perfume, or by sneaking a little taste of the aforementioned Brandy Alexander.

Genevieve was a perfect literary oddity, something out of Dickens. Once tipsy she'd put a record on her player, dance a soft, shuffling dance across the living room floor, glass held aloft so she wouldn't spill it (more out of concern for the potential waste of booze than the cleanliness of the ancient, worn rag rug) and tell a thirteen year old Isobel about her lovers, scattered across the planet like so much dust now.

Isobel didn't know whether any of the stories were true and she didn't care. Isobel had her costumes and Genevieve had her stories, and if some of them sounded a little too much like the plots of certain old movies, then that mattered less than one whit. What mattered was the dancing, and the records, skipping when Genevieve put her foot down a little too hard.

"I'm going to buy you a tape player next Christmas, Aunt Gen," Isobel said one, lying out over the faded green velvet sofa in a silk kimono, cooling herself with a Chinese fan. "So the songs don't skip when you dance."

Genevieve took a long puff on her cigarette, blowing rings into the air. Isobel loved those smoke rings, so pretty and gone so soon, though they left a sore spot in her stomach, a reminder that everything is fleeting.

Genevieve spun on the spot, and the record player skipped again. "If the songs didn't skip, my precious girl, I could never be sure I was even here."

At thirteen Isobel was already all too familiar with the sense of being someone who might not be quite real, and Genevieve's pronouncement made a frightening amount of sense.

Everything Genevieve said, Isobel memorized, hoping for a chance to re-use it at some fabulous imagined point in the future. Every word seemed ripe with wisdom.

One night, while Isobel painted her toenails ten different colors, the television turned right down low, Genevieve made a strange, choked, strangled sound. She was smoking on the couch, drinking cheap white wine from a mug, and reading an old book, and had begun to cry.

Isobel gave her a measured look, hoping that one day she would be a tragedy in faded pink silk pajamas herself, and spoke.

"Are you alright, Aunt Gen?"

Genevieve seemed to become aware, then, that she was not alone, and she dabbed at her eyes with a white handkerchief. "It's the Bulgarian in me," she sighed. "Bulgarian women are prone to tragedy and heartbreak, and crying over spilled brandy." She shook her head sadly, and Isobel's heart soared.

"Me, too? I mean, I'm a Bulgarian… woman too, right? Even though I wasn't born there?"

Gen nodded sagely. "The tragedy follows us no matter where we go. Maybe even worse, for you, darling Isobel. You were born on a Wednesday. Full of woe." She passed Isobel her mug. "Pour me another one, darling."

As Isobel poured the wine, she grinned. Aunt Gen had the most wonderful life Isobel could imagine, and the thought that her own might be even more tragic was… delicious.

Genevieve was prone to dressing up in costume jewelry and layering two dresses over her lank frame before taking a stroll in town, and Isobel would raid her closet, dressing to the nines before trailing alongside her. She imagined she was the ingénue trotting about after the mad old spinster whose story she would one day turn into a literary masterpiece. In Genevieve's closet, Isobel's favorite item was an old fox stole, partially moth-eaten, smelling of cigarette smoke and Red Door.

One Friday, towards the end of the summer, Isobel wore a red sunhat at a jaunty angle, a little red singlet, two skirts, tied with a scarf at the waist and expertly pinned to look like a ball gown (or her middle-class, childish idea of what a ball gown might look like) along with a pair of oversized white sunglasses and more makeup that her mother would ever have approved of, adding the stole last, and wishing the weather was cooler so it wouldn't prickle her neck so. She and Genevieve walked through town like they owned it, barely deigning to lower their eyes at anyone who walked past them.

In the Mystic Grill, the town hangout, Genevieve behaved as if she was about to consume the finest of French cuisine, laid the serviette in her lap and asked the waiter primly about the specials.

"Uh… we've got spaghetti in red sauce and lamb roast," he said, looking doubtful, eyeing Isobel, who was, she hoped, giving him her best Cruella De Vil sneer.

"Red sauce," Genevieve repeated, derisive. "Delightful. Give us another minute, would you, dear?"

Isobel finally took off the sunglasses, hat and stole, and peered at Genevieve with eyes like saucers. "Let's pretend we're somewhere else," she whispered, conspiratorial, and Genevieve leaned across the table until their foreheads nearly touched.

"I always pretend I'm somewhere else, darling Isobel. It is the _only_ way I can muster the strength each day to _not_ throw myself from Wickery Bridge."

There was something so freeing about the pronouncement that Isobel felt as if the blood in her veins was suddenly thinner, perhaps fizzy and a little cool. If Genevieve could be so blithe about futility of existence then Isobel could too.

"Now. Why don't you go and show the boys of Mystic Falls what they're missing out on? I'll order you the most edible-looking thing on the menu. Trust me." Genevieve had pulled a book from her bag, and Isobel knew she was being encouraged to give her a rest.

Isobel lifted her pink soda float from the table top and went to explore the juke box, hoping to find something Genevieve would approve of – Billie Holiday, perhaps, when she was jostled from behind.

Isobel had very little sense of how old people were. The three boys were older than her, certainly, and much taller – but Isobel was tiny, the shortest girl in her class. So they might have been fifteen or they might have been twenty. One gawped at her – the oldest of the three, or perhaps just the most developed. The tallest by head and shoulders.

"What the hell are you wearing, girly?" he asked, eyeing her ensemble.

Isobel put her hand on her hip and glared at him. "Girly? You grow a little peach fuzz on your chin and you think it makes you a man?"

The other two howled in laughter. "How old are you?" the giant asked.

Isobel rolled her eyes. "A gentleman never asks, and a lady never tells."

"I'm John," one of the others offered. "John Gilbert. And this is James Lockwood and Zach Salvatore."

Sensing an opportunity for one last bite, Isobel coolly eyed the giant. "A Lockwood. I should have guessed."

James rubbed idly at the fluff on his chin, and grinned broadly. "Because we're all so handsome?"

"Because you're all so arrogant," Isobel chided, shaking John's hand, feeling a flutter of excitement she hoped her voice would not betray as he raised her hand to his lips. "I'm Isobel Flemming. I'm here for the summer, staying with my aunt."

John had cool blue eyes, bright blond hair and clear skin; a sharp, intelligent look, and a curl to his lip which suggested he didn't always do what his father told him to do. He was lanky in the way teenaged boys can be, but wore it well; he looked comfortable in his skin.

(Fleetingly, Isobel wondered what that would be like.)

Zach Salvatore looked haunted, and Isobel felt a flare of kinship. He had olive-toned skin, and eyes that were just a little too small and too wide set.

John's eyes hadn't left Isobel's face, and she fought a blush, cursing her porcelain skin. "Who is your aunt?" he asked.

"Genevieve Angelova," Isobel said, relishing the name as it curled off her tongue and wishing for the millionth time that Angelova was her name, too.

She nodded at the booth, where Genevieve was artistically draped over the bench, reading Gone with the Wind for what must have been the ten thousandth time. Surely, no one could fail to see how exotic Genevieve was, with her sparkling necklaces and cherry lipstick, drinking a pink gin in the afternoon sun. Feeling the scrutiny, Genevieve looked up and gave a royal wave, and Isobel waved back, closing her lips over her drinking straw and looking at John from beneath her long eyelashes.

Zach coughed awkwardly and Isobel shook his hand, too. "You have…" he pointed to her bottom lip, where a little ice cream fizz was quivering cheerfully, and Isobel wiped it off with a little finger. "Um." Zach said, looking from John's face to Isobel's. "We were about to play a game of pool. We're still waiting on a friend, so we're down a player. Want to join us for a little while?"

The reality was that Isobel had never played pool in her life, and doubted she was tall enough to manage, but she scrunched her nose and quirked her lip. "I find pool a little vulgar."

Unused to boys in general, and particularly unused to boys who hadn't known her for her entire life, Isobel wasn't sure if the look John Gilbert gave her was amusement or curiosity, but she knew to leave him wanting more – the movies didn't agree on much, but they agreed on that.

So when John shook his head a moment, and Zach raised his eyebrows, Isobel gave all three boys a cool look. "I think it's time for lunch. It was lovely to meet you all, though. Perhaps I'll see you again before I go home."

Isobel turned on her pink sandal and flounced back to the table, just as the waiter put her plate down. A selection of seafood and three sauces in separate little bowls. Quite artistically presented.

Genevieve stuck a fork daintily into her salad, regarding Isobel with open curiosity. "Flirting with founders, dear Isobel? Careful," she said.

Isobel blushed a little. "I wasn't flirting."

"That's what it looked like from here," Genevieve argued, but she didn't look cross.

As Isobel and Genevieve read their books and finished their lunch, Isobel let her eyes drift several times to where the boys played pool, joined now by a fourth, a little younger, closer to Isobel's age. John's lazy insolence, his smirk each time he sunk a ball, made Isobel's lips feel heavy and hot, and made something like desire curl in her belly, and lower. The place on the back of her hand where John had kissed her burned like a brand.

Isobel loved to read, though, and after a time, she'd nearly forgotten he was there. Until he walked right up to the table.

"Mrs. Angelova?" he asked, putting a hand out to shake Genevieve's, and to Isobel's relief, he didn't kiss her Aunt's hand. "I'm Jonathon Gilbert."

"Charmed, I'm sure," Genevieve said, a half-smile playing on her lips.

"There's a party tomorrow night at my friend's uncle's house. The Mayor's house. I wanted to see if it would be alright to take Isobel?"

Genevieve eyed Isobel, who knew hope had cracked her face open.

"You'll pick her up?"

"Yes ma'am," John said.

"And bring her home? No later than midnight, mind."

John smiled easily. "No later than midnight."

Isobel's stomach did somersaults. Her curfew at home was nine on the weekends, and she certainly wasn't allowed out with boys.

"Isobel? Would you like to attend a party at the Mayor's house?" Genevieve cocked her head. As if it was a real question.

Isobel didn't trust herself to say anything, her mouth was so dry, but she nodded. After John took a note of her address, he said his goodbyes and followed his friends out of the restaurant.

As Isobel and Genevieve walked through the streets of Mystic Falls, back into the poorer part of town where Genevieve's little house was, Isobel began to regret saying yes. She eyed the falling-down fences and cars on blocks in the front yard, and wondered what John would think when he saw. Still, he had the address – he would have some idea of what the house would be like. Genevieve walked with her back straight and her eyes partially closed, soaking up the sun.

"I'm not allowed to date," Isobel blurted, and Genevieve draped an indulgent arm over her shoulders.

"Until…?" she asked.

"Mom says until I'm sixteen. Daddy says until I'm thirty."

Genevieve shrugged. "It's not a date. It's a very respectable party. There will be adults there. I'm sure if your parents knew you were going to the Mayor's house, they'd be very impressed."

Isobel's heart sank, until her aunt continued, "Still, let's not test that theory. Now, we have to find something for you to wear."

* * *

The following night, dressed in red and white and looking every inch the Southern belle – or so she thought – Isobel fussed and fussed over her hair in the mirror, waiting for the knock on the door.

John was dressed impeccably in an expensive-looking suit, and looked older, more sophisticated than he had the previous day.

He looked at Isobel's dress with an inscrutable expression, and then smiled. "You look lovely," he said, kissing the back of her hand, and presented Genevieve with a large bunch of flowers.

Aunt Gen bowed her head in thanks. "Midnight, Mr. Gilbert," she said.

John's brother Grayson was driving. Grayson had just finished his medical residency and was in the process of setting up his own family practice in town. He'd recently married the prettiest woman Isobel thought she might ever have seen. Miranda.

"That's quite a dress, Isobel," Miranda said. Not unkindly, but perhaps to give Isobel fair warning that she was going to stand out somewhat. "You're going to make a splash."

A valet came to park the car. A _valet_. Isobel stood outside the Lockwood mansion, gaping, until she felt Miranda's hand on her arm.

"How old are you, sweetheart?" Miranda asked, conspiratorially.

"Thirteen," Isobel confessed, casting her eyes down. Miranda was so beautiful, and had such a kind face, that for a moment Isobel wanted to confess that she was terrified, and let Miranda's dulcet tones talk her around. Miranda nodded.

"Be careful around those boys, Isobel. No more than one glass of champagne, and you be sure to drink it slowly. And if you're uncomfortable and you want to go home, just come and find me. I'll take you right away. Deal?" Miranda smiled widely, before taking her husband's arm and waltzing toward the door.

Isobel decided that when she grew up, she was going to be Miranda Gilbert. Silently she catalogued the items she would need to pull it off. Sophisticated, sleek outfits. Glossy hair, perfectly manicured fingernails. Sensible kitten heels.

In a near-perfect imitation of his older brother, John crooked his elbow, and Isobel decided this was the perfect time to start practicing to be Miranda. She tucked her tiny hand into John's elbow and smiled graciously.

All the women were dressed in sleek black, maybe a little white or navy for the adventurous. Isobel looked like a candy cane. Her knees almost buckled as all around the room, eyes caught and appraised her, faces frowned at John – frowned at Miranda and Grayson, even – and so it was that less than ten minutes after arriving at Mayor Lockwood's posh party, Isobel was mumbling something about finding a bathroom, and praying she wouldn't burst into tears.

After about ten minutes hiding in a stall in a lavish guest bathroom, Isobel heard John's voice. "Isobel? Are you in there?"

Isobel had to bite her lip, but John wasn't going away. "I'll just be a minute, John," she answered, hating the taste of shame in her voice. "Really."

"Come out of there," he insisted.

Isobel sighed and opened the door. Crossed her arms over her ridiculous dress. "I don't fit in here," she said sadly.

"Maybe that's why I like you," John answered, quirking his lip. "Come on. We'll find my friends."

The teenagers of Mystic Falls – everyone with ties to one of the founding families, anyway – were gathered on a balcony out to the side of the mansion, smoking sneaky cigarettes and drinking pilfered whiskey. John handed Isobel a glass of champagne and she giggled as her legs and eyelids began to feel immediately heavier.

Isobel was the youngest of the group by a year but she contented herself with the idea that she was a novelty, the 'different' girl, someone they wouldn't see for the whole of the school year, and just enjoyed the curious looks.

She and John sat on a stone bench, and Isobel sipped slowly at her champagne, sneaking glances at his big blue eyes.

"When do you go home?" he asked at last.

Isobel smiled sadly. "This Wednesday. School starts the week after, so…"

"Here, too," John agreed, and tangled his fingers in Isobel's. A sharp, almost unrecognized flare of desire shot through her.

"Do you…" she couldn't finish.

"Do I what?" John asked, cocking his eyebrows and sipping at his own drink, before placing it on the ground by his feet.

Isobel was grateful the night was dark, because she could feel a blush creeping up her cheeks. "Do you want to kiss me?" she asked.

John gave her a long, considered look, eyes lingering on her lips far longer than he likely intended to let them. He reached his free hand up to sweep Isobel's hair from her eyes. "Yes," he said.

Isobel waited, moistening her lips just slightly. She'd never been kissed before.

"How old are you?" John asked at last.

"Thirteen," Isobel admitted.

John nodded. "Next summer. I'll kiss you next summer," he said.

* * *

When her father arrived in Mystic Falls to collect Isobel and drive her home, Isobel cried. When they packed up the car and Genevieve gave her one last hug, Isobel howled.

"Maybe I could stay and live with you," she begged her aunt. "I could go to school here."

"If you lived here all the time, I couldn't look forward to your visit," Genevieve answered, gently cupping Isobel's face in her hands. "I'll talk to you on the phone, soon, and I'll see you next summer."

* * *

The next nine months were a living hell, for Isobel, for her parents, for her sisters.

For one thing, puberty happened, and the reluctant buds of breasts Isobel had examined daily for signs of growth for as long as she could remember started to ache all day, every day, making it impossible to sleep, to dress comfortably, to do anything at all. She reminded herself over and over that at least it meant she'd have breasts, soon. It felt as though that was still a million years away.

Her hormones fired every which way, and the smallest argument would become a protracted fight far too often. Isobel raged at her parents, raged at her sisters, cried in her room for hours.

At school, she excelled in those subjects that interested her, and came close to failing everything else. Her parents grounded her, which suited her fine, as she didn't want to waste time with the kids at her school anyway.

At night, when things were quieter, with tears invariably drying on her cheeks, Isobel wrote long letters to John Gilbert. Pages at a time, every little thought she had, every disappointment, every argument with her parents, everything her sisters did to drive her crazy – it all went into the letters.

At the end of each one, she wrote:

_All my love,  
Isobel._

And then she'd put on some red lipstick and kiss the page.

Isobel had bought a box of expensive envelopes, heavy parchment with a watermark which seemed reassuringly official. Once she'd folded the letter into three and tucked it inside, sealing it closed, she'd put John's name on the front, hold the envelope to her heart a moment, and then put it in a box with all the others.

She didn't know John's address and in a way, it was a relief. It was like a diary, this way, a diary with big blue eyes that had once kissed her on the hand, a diary that had smiled sweetly and promised to kiss her properly next year. Sending the letters would have fucked it all right up. Isobel wanted to seem aloof and interesting, and hundreds of pages of letters about her dull life would not have helped.

It had quickly become one of Isobel's favorite costumes: Mysterious stranger in the red and white dress. She wondered if the kids she'd met in Mystic Falls ever spoke about her in her absence.

Isobel's fourteenth birthday, she begged her mother for a pair of Doc Marten boots, and hugged her fiercely when she acquiesced. Isobel begged her oldest sister to take her to flea markets and Goodwill stores for interesting accessories, begged the middle sister – who was much better at these things – to teach her to use eyeliner. Listened to scratchy tapes of the Cure and wished she lived in New York or Paris.

In March Isobel bought pots and pots of dye and dyed her entire wardrobe black, black being a good color for a mysterious stranger to wear. In reality everything came out streaky, and Isobel's mother had to take her shopping for new things. Isobel refused to even try on anything that wasn't black, with the exception of a few splashes of red, and was gratified when her mother suggested it might be time to start wearing a bra.

That night, as Isobel stood in front of her full length mirror and crossed another day off her calendar she tried to imagine what it would be like when John Gilbert kissed her.

* * *

Isobel arrived in Mystic Falls on the seventh of July, nearly three weeks after school finished. Dearly wanted to be in Mystic Falls for the fourth, hoping John might bring her to the Founder's Fourth of July party, but her parents were insisting they do something as a family, and since the fighting had died down, Isobel elected not to make ripples.

Genevieve crushed her in a hug. "Darling Isobel – What are you wearing? All this black? We need to get you into some colors."

"It's my new look, Aunt Gen," Isobel confessed, feeling silly. "You don't like it?"

Genevieve gave her a measured look. "Very dramatic," she declared, and Isobel felt herself preen.

After bidding her father farewell and promising to behave, Isobel followed Genevieve into the kitchen. "Has anyone…" she started. "Has anyone asked about me?"

"Anyone?" Aunt Gen answered, cocking her head. "I assume you mean your young man, Mr. Gilbert?"

"He's not my young man, Aunt Gen," Isobel said, blushing, as she sliced a lemon for iced tea.

"Well, as a matter of fact, I bumped into him at the Grill just a couple of weeks ago. That boy has manners, doesn't he? Reminds me of my Jeffrey…"

"Aunt Gen?"

Genevieve's eyes had become unfocussed, her mind a million miles away, just for a moment, but she snapped back. "I'm sorry, darling. He asked me when you were arriving."

Isobel's heart pounded so furiously in her chest that she felt certain her aunt would be able to hear it. "Did you tell him?"

"Of course I did. I was under the impression you liked him, dearest girl." Genevieve gave Isobel a wicked grin as she shredded mint leaves between her fingers. "I did imply you might be very busy, though."

Aunt Gen might be crazy, and really, she never remembered that Isobel was a young teenaged girl – but she got it, she really did. Isobel smiled.

"Now," her aunt said, putting all the ingredients into a jug, pouring hot water over the top, and pouring herself a large gin, "other than growing boobs, what have you been up to all year?"

* * *

It was several days before Isobel heard from John Gilbert, but she carefully kept her makeup immaculate just in case. The night she finally saw him, he knocked on the door, a little after dinner.

Genevieve answered the door, because Isobel had gotten into the habit of draping herself elegantly over a chair whenever there was a knock on the door, sticking her nose in a book, so as not to look too eager. Truth be told, every time there was a knock on the door, her heart beat so hard, and her knees knocked so badly, that she thought if she was standing up, she might fall over.

"Mr. Gilbert," Genevieve said, accepting the flowers he'd brought. "Lovely to see you."

"Mrs. Angelova," John answered. "I was wondering if I could take Isobel out for a drive?"

Isobel rose slowly from her chair, heart thumping, and smiled. John had grown taller, filled out a little, but his eyes and his open, honest face were just as she remembered. He was dressed casually but neatly in a pair of crisp jeans and a button-up shirt, hands slung in his pockets.

"Isobel?" Genevieve asked. "Would you like to go for a drive?"

Isobel smiled her most mysterious smile, cocked her chin, and acquiesced.

Not trusting herself to speak, Isobel folded herself into the passenger seat and looked straight ahead. John started the car and immediately the engine stalled. "I just got my license," he admitted. "I do that just about every time I start the car. When I'm nervous, anyway. It's a miracle I got through the test," he added, smoothly pulling away from the curb.

Isobel had to conceal a smile at the thought that John was nervous with her.

"You look different," he said, eyeing her clothes (and, she hoped, her brand-new boobs).

"Do I?" Isobel answered coolly. "You do, as well. You're taller."

"Thank God for that," he said, grinning. "I've given up catching up with Zach or James, but it's nice to be taller than my mom at last."

"Where are we going?"

"I want to show you something," John answered. "Don't worry. I'll look after you."

He parked the car in a small space by the edge of the forest. Isobel climbed out of the car, looking around. She had never visited this part of the forest. "Where are we?"

John quirked his lip. "The Falls. You've never seen them, right?" He took Isobel's hand and she felt her hand close over his, hoping he couldn't feel her pulse, so like the pulse of a bird, fluttering within.

Isobel followed John down a crooked path, to a series of platforms, with a barbecue area. "Do they have parties here?"

"Constantly," John answered, leading Isobel to a picnic area with benches. She sat down, looking out over the falls, controlling her face, smiling in a way she hoped was mysterious.

"Sometimes, I like to come here and pretend I'm somewhere else," John mused. "The Black Forest in Germany, or maybe somewhere in Australia. Just… somewhere else."

Isobel tossed her long, black hair back. "I always pretend I'm somewhere else. It is the _only_ way I can get through the day without jumping off Wickery Bridge." John grinned, and Isobel smiled softly.

"It's beautiful, here," she added.

"You're beautiful," John said. Isobel laughed. "God, I can't believe I said that," John admitted, rubbing his eyes.

Isobel licked her lips, just slightly, and the next thing she knew, John was holding her face, lowering his lips to hers.

It wasn't quite what Isobel was expecting; John's lips were hard and soft at the same time, opening and closing just slightly over her own, and Isobel couldn't work out what to do with her hands. When she felt John's tongue in her mouth, she nearly leapt out of her skin, let out an embarrassing little moan and opened her mouth a little wider.

To Isobel's surprise, her hands had made their way to John's waist, and she appeared to be trying to draw him closer. When she moaned a second time, she felt John smile against her mouth.

When he started to draw away, Isobel thought for a horrible second that she had done something wrong, but he was barely an inch from her face when he spoke.

"I've been thinking about that all year," he said, and kissed her again, before she could say something stupid.

* * *

John took Isobel out a couple of times a week, and visited her at home more frequently.

Sometimes, Genevieve danced in the living room, and John danced with her, and Isobel watched them, delighted. Aunt Gen seemed to intrigue John as much as she intrigued Isobel.

John taught Isobel to play pool – he wasn't the only one who had grown taller in a year – and they kissed, and kissed, and kissed. They didn't do anything else – though Isobel knew John wanted to, and she let him touch her bare breasts, once, and it made her want to do other things too, especially when he lowered his lips to her aching nipple, but while John was sixteen, he was painfully aware that Isobel was only fourteen, so he didn't press any further.

The summer was drawing to a close, and more than once Isobel cried herself to sleep, so horrified at the thought of leaving John behind again.

One night John took Isobel for a hot chocolate at the Mystic Grill, and gave her all his marshmallows. "You never talk about your life at home," he said, feeding her milk froth from his mug, since she'd finished hers already. Isobel decided she liked being a girlfriend, though mysterious stranger was still her main persona.

Isobel shrugged. "Not much to tell."

"Tell me about your family. You know everything about mine."

Mysterious stranger. Mysterious stranger. Isobel took a deep breath – and lied. "I'm an only child. My parents travel a lot, for work, so when school's out, it's easier if I stay with Aunt Gen."

"Is that cool? Being an only child?"

"Grayson's, like, _old_, John. You're practically an only child." Isobel pushed the marshmallows down into the chocolate with her spoon and giggled as they rose to the surface again.

"What do your parents do?"

Isobel shrugged. Her mother was a teacher and her father an electrician, but that didn't sound very mysterious. "Business. I don't really know. They go all over the world." Truthfully, Isobel doubted her parents had passports.

John reached across the table and took Isobel's hand in his. "It must be lonely."

"I'm pretty independent," Isobel said, shooting her eyebrows in the air, and taking a melted marshmallow from her mug. "It's okay."

Truthfully, mysterious stranger was a persona she was enjoying immensely. She wished she could see into John's mind, see how he imagined her life back home.

"What day of the week were you born?" Isobel asked, suddenly.

John smiled. "Thursday. Why?"

_Thursday's child has far to go_, Isobel thought, smiling widely.

"Do you want to come to the Mayor's end of Summer party again?" John blurted. Isobel smiled.

"I'd love to, Mr. Gilbert," she said, leaning across the table for a kiss.

* * *

"Time for your birthday present," Genevieve said, when Isobel gleefully announced she would be attending the party.

"My birthday was in January, Gen," Isobel said, giggling. "You sent me makeup."

Gen tipped her head to the side. "Wasn't gonna send this to your parents' house, doll," she said, crooking her finger, beckoning Isobel to follow. In Genevieve's wardrobe hung a garment bag, and she presented it to Isobel with a flourish.

It was a dress – a proper dress, a black sheath, something that would fit in at any Founders' event, and it fit like a glove. Twirling in front of the full length mirror to make the hem flip up, Isobel thought she looked terribly grown-up, and she couldn't wait for next weekend.

When John knocked on the door, Isobel answered it, and she thought his eyes might fall right out of his head. He raked his eyes over Isobel's body, drinking in every inch of her, and Isobel smiled – not mysteriously, there was no hope of that, but she hoped she at least wasn't blushing too brightly.

"You look, ah," John started, and then leaned in for a kiss.

Miranda and Grayson came to the door, as well, this time, and Grayson shared pleasantries with Genevieve about the new medical practice, which had been running nearly a year.

Miranda gave Isobel a fierce hug and whispered into her ear. "You look beautiful, Isobel. But remember our deal from last year. Remember you're fourteen, okay?"

Isobel decided she didn't want to be Miranda Gilbert when she grew up, after all, but she smiled and nodded. Genevieve took a few photographs and then it was time to leave.

This time, Isobel's appearance didn't so much as raise an eyebrow amongst the guests, and she felt the strangest sense of loss. She swept a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray, and John snatched it back.

"We try to be a bit more subtle than that, Is," he said sternly, and Isobel rolled her eyes, quietly delighted to have seemed so bold. She followed John out to the balcony, where she was greeted by most as an old friend. The boys had become used to seeing Isobel attached to John's hip over the summer.

James Lockwood was bigger than ever, and oddly angry, as if carrying something in his barrel chest that was causing him real pain, and Zach looked even more haunted than Isobel remembered.

The girls, whose names Isobel could never keep straight in her mind, so similar were they all, eyed her with a mixture of scorn and amusement.

"I think I liked last year's dress better," one commented, with a vicious glint in her eye.

Isobel smiled sweetly. "That's so sweet of you to say. Is that the same dress you wore last year? It suits you beautifully. Still."

There was a bit of a kerfuffle at the door, and yet another Lockwood giant joined the group on the balcony. They were easily distinguishable by their huge chests and even more giant egos.

John tensed, and Isobel tangled her fingers in his. "Not your favorite person?"

"That family," John complained. "There are thousands of them. James is alright, but the rest of them? Not a big fan, no."

"What's his name?"

"Spencer," John grumbled.

Isobel sipped slowly at a glass of champagne, and watched everybody else with interest. It was a little like having friends, she thought, but the politics made her head spin. She wondered what it was like at Mystic Falls High School, when the Founding Families had to mix it up with the rest of the world. The thought made her snicker.

Spencer Lockwood made the rounds, shaking hands, slapping arms, until he made his way to John.

"Gilbert! Smug son of a bitch, I hear you fucked Jilly Fell on the Fourth of July! Well played, my man," he said, holding a hand aloft for a high five.

John froze, and Isobel knew instantly it was true.

"Is Jilly here tonight, man?" Spencer asked, unaware that he had just broken Isobel's heart. "Wouldn't mind tappin' that myself."

Isobel got to her feet, unsteady.

"Is…" John started.

Isobel shook her head. "No. Fuck you, John," she said, mustering all the rage her fourteen year old self could muster.

She staggered through the mansion until she found Miranda, grabbed her arm, holding herself up.

"Take me home," she begged, and though she meant 'take me to Aunt Gen's house', a part of her wished she could sleep in her own bed, hug her own mother, cry into her sisters' shoulders.

* * *

Mysterious stranger was a thing of the past. Isobel reached into the box of masks and costumes in the box in her heart, reinvented herself, realizing she could do far, far better than mysterious stranger. Girl whose heart has been broken one time too many could work well, too, even if 'one time too many' literally meant once.

Isobel schooled herself daily to be hardcore girl. She didn't fight with her parents, her sisters, just kept her eyes clear and direct, and listened to a lot of punk music, Tilt and Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill. Practiced her hardcore face in the mirror. She convinced herself that 'not afraid of anything' and 'hating John Gilbert' were legitimate emotions.

Bizarrely, she joined the cheerleading squad – loved the discipline and the early mornings. Loved being around girls, loved to push her body to its limits. The football team was well known to be one of the worst in the state, but the cheer squads were excellent and because Isobel was so small and lithe, the senior Varsity squad sometimes borrowed her if they needed someone to throw in the air. Besides, this was high school. There was never such a good time to really mix things up.

Isobel started to notice boys watching her, and not in a casual way, but she swore she wouldn't ever date again.

* * *

It was late October, and Isobel had been back in school nearly two months, when Genevieve called. "I have a very sad young man sitting on my couch, eating my cookies," she said, voice stern and soft. "He's demanding your phone number, or failing that, your address, so he can write you a letter."

Isobel considered for a moment.

"Tell him if he wants to write me a letter, you'll address it and post it," she said, after a long beat. "Don't give him my phone number. And Gen?"

"Yes, dear girl?"

"Make him pay for the stamp."

John's letter was pathetic – begging and apologetic in equal measure. _She meant nothing. It meant nothing. There's something really special about you_. Blah blah blah. Isobel pored over the letter at least three times a day, swearing to herself each time that she'd never do it again.

The letters came about once a month, but Isobel never answered a single one.

* * *

Isobel arrived in Mystic Falls on the thirteenth of July, and was pleased when Aunt Gen gaped.

"Darling girl! You look so different," she said, giving Isobel a brief, bone-crushing hug. As Isobel's father drove away, Isobel preened.

"Cheer squad keeps you fit," she explained. "And it's very empowering," she added, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

Gen lifted one bag and Isobel the other, and they deposited both in Isobel's room, and Isobel fought tooth and nail not to ask about John Gilbert.

"All those letters," Gen said in a sing-song voice, as they made their way back to the kitchen. "And you never answered a single one. Very Bulgarian of you, darling Isobel," she said approvingly.

Isobel frowned. "How do you know I never wrote back?"

"Because your Mr. Gilbert corners me every chance he gets to beg for your phone number or to ask me if I think you'll ever forgive him. For whatever it is he did. Incidentally…" Genevieve poured a gin and tonic, as Isobel sliced lemons. "What did he do?"

"Jilly Fell," Isobel grumbled.

Genevieve froze. "Isobel, you're not…"

For a long beat, Genevieve looked almost parental. All theatricality departed from her lean frame and she fumbled the bottle of tonic water. "You're fifteen, Isobel. I think you're too young for, you know."

Isobel cringed. "We're not. You know. We're not."

"I'm trusting you, when I let you go gallivanting all over Mystic Falls with him. You know that, right? If anything happened to you your parents would never forgive me."

Isobel covered her eyes. "Can we not talk about this? Please? Besides it doesn't matter. I'm never gonna speak to him again."

At last, Gen tossed her back over the shoulders and dropped some heart-shaped ice cubes into her drink, the mad spinster persona settling back over her features. "Well, your first heartbreak is over and done with," she declared airily. "How do you feel?"

"Like a woman," Isobel replied, sticking her nose in the air.

* * *

They danced in the living room that night, and the next, and Isobel lay out in a hammock during the day to read, careful to keep from burning. Her skin was so pale it would peel terribly if she got burnt. Isobel and Genevieve ate fresh fruit with slivers of cheese for lunch most days and Isobel drank apple juice from a brandy snifter.

Isobel was dozing in the hammock, wearing a tiny sundress and a wide, floppy hat, her book open and forgotten on her chest, when a familiar, masculine voice said "Hi, Isobel."

Isobel lifted the brim of the hat, gave John a cold look and dropped it again. "Hello, John," she answered, praying that the hardcore girl costume could withstand the pang of want John always inspired in her.

John gave a nervous cough. "You look…" he trailed off.

"Let me guess. Different?"

"I was going to say amazing. Strong."

Isobel sat up, climbed out of the hammock (very difficult to do with any degree of grace). "Thank you," she said. "Can you go now? Please?"

"Can we talk first? You never answered my letters."

John really did look pretty miserable. Privately, Isobel was delighted, and debating whether or not she would make up with him, but her face, she knew, would betray nothing. She nodded slightly, in acquiescence, and indicated that John should take a seat on the step. Isobel sat alongside him, very conscious of John's eyes on her legs.

"You know we weren't together when I slept with Jilly, right?" John started.

"You told me you had been looking forward to kissing me for a whole year, John. Were you looking forward to it while you fucked Jilly Fell?"

Isobel felt her heart soar. She didn't think would be able to speak like that, but she had. Externally, she looked cool and collected, while John cringed.

"It was stupid. It was totally, totally stupid."

"Have you been with anyone this year?" Isobel asked.

John shook his head. "No. No one. I swear. I took a girl to cotillion but it wasn't even a real date. I was just a white knight."

It had been all very well to refuse to talk to John when she was back home. All that was needed was to ignore his letters. She could stand her ground knowing there wasn't really another option. Now that he was in front of her, Isobel really couldn't see a good reason to drag it out any longer.

"Okay," she said. "I forgive you."

John smiled, took Isobel's hand. "Can I take you out for dinner?" he asked.

"Let me guess – the Grill?"

John chuckled. "Not much choice, around here." He stood, helped Isobel to her feet.

"You got tall," Isobel said, and it was true; John was close to six feet, now, and looked more like a man that he had the year before. "Did you pass James and Zach?"

"I passed Zach. Lockwoods are mostly really tall, so not much hope there." He took Isobel's hands, brushed his thumbs against her wrists. "I've missed you," he said, and seemed so sweet. He dropped her hands and cupped her face, leaning until their mouths met.

Once again, Isobel felt a stab of desire, her fifteen-year old body, so close to a woman's, now, responding to the closeness of John's body and the feeling of his tongue, so heavy in her mouth. She thought, momentarily, that she might fall, but John laid her head against his chest and held her gently, promising never to hurt her again.

* * *

One lazy afternoon at Genevieve's house, late in the summer, while Genevieve was out playing cards with friends, John lay on the couch with Isobel draped over his side as they whispered about the future.

"I go to college in a year," John said sadly. "I wish you could come with me."

Isobel giggled in a way that hardcore girl never really did – but Isobel was wearing the girlfriend persona again, and felt happy and lazy. She'd slip hardcore girl back over her skin when she left Mystic Falls.

"Maybe you could go to college in DC too, in a couple of years, you know?"

Isobel lifted her head to catch John's eyes. "Once you're around those college girls you'll forget all about me," she said airily. John pulled her closer.

"No, I won't. It's you and me, Is. We'll get married in a few years and have babies and build an amazing life for ourselves…"

Something hot and foreign coiled in Isobel's stomach. "You really think so?"

John landed a kiss on the top of her head. "I know so."

It was a beautiful dream, so Isobel decided to play along. "We'll live here, in Mystic Falls."

To her surprise, John tensed. "No. Not here."

Isobel ran her fingers over John's lips, squealing when he took them in his mouth. "Why not?" she asked. "I like it here."

"Being a Gilbert in this town…" John let his eyes drift shut. "It means a sort of responsibility I just don't want."

"What, you don't wanna spend your life throwing founders' day events and running golf fundraisers?"

John smiled. "Something like that." He carded his fingers through Isobel's long dark hair.

Isobel shifted her weight so that she could see John's face. "What?"

John shook his head. "Nothing."

"I know when you're trying to hide something. Tell me. Come on. You're the one who said we're going to get married and have babies. No secrets."

"I really can't talk about this stuff, Is."

"Fine," she said, sitting up straighter, untangling herself from John's legs. "Don't tell me."

"Wait," John said, drawing her back to him. "I want to tell you. I do. But you have to swear you'll never tell a soul, Is. Promise me."

"I promise," Isobel said, solemn, crossing her heart dramatically. "Not another soul."

And then John started to tell the story of the vampires in Mystic Falls. How back in 1864 the town burned thirty or so of them in the old church. How others came through from time to time, and how the founding families kept the secret, mobilized to kill any vampires that came through.

Isobel felt hot and cold, the strangest sensations erupting all over her body, and when John shifted so he could see her face, she was shocked to see him look so worried.

"Isobel, what?" he asked, wiping her tears away.

"Is it true?" she breathed.

John hesitated, and nodded. "It's true. But it's okay, Is. They haven't been here in a long time and -"

Isobel drove her head into John's shoulder. "But it's true, it's definitely true, about the vampires?"

John patted down her hair, drew her into his lap. "It's true. Isobel, why are you crying? You're safe, it's safe. They can't get into your house unless you invite them. Oh, shit, I've upset you. I'm sorry. I grew up with this stuff, I wasn't thinking…"

But tears aside, Isobel was smiling, because if there were vampires in Mystic Falls, then the world was a lot bigger and stranger and more wonderful than she thought.

For the rest of the summer, whenever there was a quiet moment, Isobel would distract John with kisses and whisper "Tell me again about the vampires, John."

A little over a week before Isobel was due to go home, Aunt Gen went to the pictures with friends in a neighboring town. Isobel invited John around, cooked dinner – nothing flash, just spaghetti Bolognese, the only thing she really knew how to cook, and lit candles everywhere. After dinner, she took John by the hand and led him to her bedroom.

"Isobel…" John shook his head. "We don't have to…"

"I want to. I want it to be you and I want it to happen before I go home. Please, John," she said, hands shaking as she undid the buttons on her shirt. She sat next to him on the bed and John watched her as she stripped the shirt off, as she fumbled to unclasp her bra. "We're in love, right? This is the real thing?"

After a pause, John reached out to trace the shape of Isobel's breast with his hand. "Of course it's real. We'll be together forever."

"Then let's start tonight," she said.

Isobel was pretty sure she knew enough about the mechanics of sex, but the execution she was a little unsure about. She and John took their clothes off, she more nervous than he was, and climbed under the covers.

"I don't really know what I'm doing," Isobel admitted, as John kissed her face and breasts, giving a little moan as he put his hand between her legs, twitching violently when he found her clitoris, shocked and slightly shamed when John found her hot and wet.

"Your body knows what to do. God, Is… you're so beautiful," John said, kissing her again. "We can just fool around, you know, we don't have to actually have sex. This is nice."

But Isobel shook her head. "I want to, I really want to." Inexpertly she took his dick in her hand, unsure what to expect. It was thick and hard and oddly alive, twitching in her tiny hand as she stroked it, surprising her.

"If it hurts, or you change your mind, just tell me, okay?"

As John nestled between Isobel's legs, preparing to enter her for the first time, Isobel felt an odd swell of pride. She was about to become a woman.

The next thing she knew, John was inside her, moaning into her hair, and instinct saw Isobel wrap her legs around John's waist, flinching as something tore deep inside her. The odd stretch was strangely reassuring, as if John was staking a claim, and Isobel regretted, suddenly, that she had lied to him, about her family, about her life back home. She promised herself she would come clean. They'd laugh about it, one day, in their big house in the suburbs.

No, they wouldn't.

Isobel knew very little, but she knew she wasn't cut out for a nice, normal life in the suburbs; knew this might well be the last summer she ever saw John Gilbert, no matter what he was saying now.

It hurt, but it felt good, too, and all too soon, it was over. Isobel felt the odd warmth between her legs that meant John had had an orgasm, and wondered if she'd had one too; surely, it was something you should be able to tell?

"Are you okay?" John whispered, softening inside her, and Isobel smiled.

"Yeah."

"Did you… did you like it?"

Truthfully, Isobel wasn't sure. "It was beautiful," she said, relaxing against Johns' chest as he pulled out and nestled in alongside her. Idly, she wondered if they should have used birth control, a condom or something, but she was pretty sure you couldn't get pregnant the first time.

After cleaning up and getting dressed, Isobel walked John to the door. "So do you want to come to the Mayor's end of summer party again?" John asked, arms draped loosely around Isobel's waist.

"I'd be delighted, Mr. Gilbert," Isobel answered, pushing herself up to her tiptoes to kiss him.

After the party, John took Isobel aside, finding a dark corner. "I have something for you," he said, removing his ring. It was a big, ugly thing; all he'd ever said about it before was that it was a family heirloom.

Isobel giggled. "It's too big for me."

"Then put it on a necklace and wear it that way. Just promise me you'll always wear it. As long as you have it on you, nothing supernatural can kill you."

"Like a vampire?" Isobel asked, eyes glinting eagerly.

"Like a vampire," John agreed, kissing her softly. "If my father finds out I gave it away I'll never hear the end of it. But I love you, Is. I need to know you're safe. Always."

"I love you too," Isobel said, returning his kiss, and putting the ring into her purse like a secret.

* * *

Back home, Isobel learned something new about her masks and costumes – there was no persona that could conceal the fact that she was pregnant and fifteen. After a year of perfectly regular periods, when she missed one, Isobel instantly knew that she was carrying John's child.

She didn't tell him. She thought a thousand times a day about picking up the phone or writing him a letter, but she couldn't do it.

By Christmas Isobel had started to gain weight. This was easy to explain away – she had not gone back to the cheer squad, as terrified as she was of wearing the fitted outfits, or of being dropped and having a miscarriage – and this was the excuse she made to her mother when they shopped for new clothes.

By February, the house was a war zone. Isobel's mother screamed at Aunt Gen on the phone, reminding her they had trusted her with their daughter, and where the hell was Gen when Isobel was spreading her legs for some good-for-nothing boy?

Isobel was dragged to the doctor's office for confirmation, and he counseled them about options.

Options. There were only two. Keep the baby or adopt her out.

* * *

In the middle of June, Isobel ran away.

Well, she waddled away. Her tiny frame was racked with constant aches and pains, her feet and legs screamed in three languages, and she was sure she was ready to pop any second. The day after school let out, Isobel's best friend Trudie picked her up as soon as Isobel's parents and sisters left the house and drove her to the bus station in Trudie's mother's car, fretting all the way about who would be in more trouble if they got caught: Isobel for running away, or Trudi for stealing her mother's car and driving it, unlicensed, to help her.

"Call me when she's born, Is, promise me?" she begged, hugging Isobel as tight as she dared.

"I promise," Isobel said. She handed her bag to the luggage attendant, who sneered distastefully at her huge belly, and climbed up onto the bus.

Isobel arrived in Mystic Falls at around eight o'clock that night, exhausted from doing nothing at all but sit for hours on end while the bus visited every single small town in Virginia, or so it seemed. She ignored the judgmental looks of the other passengers and read her book until she was so scared she literally couldn't read the words on the page.

She walked up main street until she found the doctor's office, copying down the emergency out of hours phone number, and found a pay phone. She called her parents first.

"I'm not telling you where I am. There's a doctor here, mom, he'll help. He will."

Her mother made an explosive sound in her throat. "Are you in Mystic Falls?"

"No. I'm never going there again. Look, mom, I gotta go. I got myself into this mess. I'll get myself out of it."

"Isobel, you're sixteen! For God's sake, tell me where you are and we'll drive, right now. You could go into labor any time."

Isobel didn't say that she suspected it had already started. She'd had some pain in the bus, but it wasn't the first time, and she wasn't due for another week. "I'll call you in a couple of days. Don't worry about me, mom. I love you. Even though I'm a horrible daughter. I really love you." Shaking, she hung up the phone against her mother's protests.

When she dialed Grayson and Miranda Gilbert's number, and heard Miranda's soft voice for the first time in nine months, Isobel burst into tears.

"Miranda? It's Isobel. I'm outside the Mystic Grill and I need you to pick me up."

An hour later, Isobel was weeping buckets on the Gilbert family's couch while Grayson tried to take a medical history and Miranda rubbed circles into Isobel's back, eyeing her stomach with some combination of horror and jealousy.

At last the door flew open and John was there. He crouched in front of Isobel and ghosted his hands over her stomach. "Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.

"I couldn't."

John took Isobel in his arms. "We'll figure this out, Is. It's gonna be okay."

Grayson exploded. "Figure this out? What are you talking about, John? She's sixteen. You're eighteen and going to college in the Fall."

John shrugged, taking Miranda's place on the couch. "So I won't go. I'll get a job."

Isobel shook her head. "No, John. You can't do that."

"She's right. You can't do that, John." Grayson was incensed.

"I know this might be hard for you to believe, Gray, but Isobel and I are in love. We're gonna get married one day. Have a family. So what if it's starting now? Tell them, Is."

Isobel tensed.

"We're kids ourselves, John," she said at last.

John seemed shocked by her pronouncement. "So what? We're in love. We'll make it work."

Isobel shook her head. "No. We won't. I don't want this. Not now. Maybe not ever."

John shifted so that he could look at her face. "Are you serious?"

"I'm sixteen," Isobel begged. "I don't know what I want. I just know I don't want _this_." Suddenly, she doubled over, moaning loudly. When the contraction passed – and it had to be a contraction, nothing in the world could be that painful but punishment for what she'd done, what she was about to do – Isobel looked up at Grayson, shifted her gaze to Miranda.

"Will you take her?" she begged. "I know you want children. I know you've been having trouble conceiving. You can give her a life. I can't."

Miranda's eyes filled with tears. "It's a girl?"

Isobel nodded. Grayson's eyes were full of hope, and he regarded his brother with something like desperation. "If we take her, you can get your education, and you can still be a part of her life."

"She's my daughter!" John was angry and upset, but still holding Isobel possessively, one hand on her belly. "Isobel… you're upset. You're in pain. You're hormonal. When she's born, you'll see. You won't be able to give her up. And you can't force me to. I won't do it."

Like punctuation, another contraction racked Isobel's body.

* * *

Isobel gave birth in the medical centre, at four o'clock the following morning, and then slept in the Gilbert's guest room for twelve straight hours. When she woke up, Miranda was there, with the baby in her arms.

Miranda smiled. "Are you okay?" she asked, softly. "Would you like to hold her?"

Isobel nodded, and Miranda placed the tiny, warm bundle in her arms. "She's so pretty," Isobel sighed.

"Isobel, I need to call your parents. You know that, right?"

Isobel ignored her, running her fingers over the baby's face, over her ear, marveling at the tiny fingers. "Have you named her yet?"

Miranda sighed. "Isobel… Are you sure about this?"

Isobel nodded. "Yes. I want her to have the most amazing life. And I can't give her that," she added, almost as if she was trying to convince herself.

She didn't even hear John when he arrived, just heard his voice from the doorway. "You can't just give away our daughter, Isobel. I want to raise her myself, even if you don't want her." His eyes were red from crying, misery emanated from every pore, and his face wore an expression that was some terrible combination of anger and determination.

"John… look at her. Have you looked at her?"

"I held her for hours," John snapped. "I'm the one who wants her, remember?"

Isobel ignored the gripe. "You know I'm right. You know. You just can't admit it to yourself."

John stormed from the room, and Miranda whispered, "Elena. We're calling her Elena. If that's okay with you."

* * *

Isobel didn't see John for fifteen years, and when she did, he was a different man; cold. The boy who had cried at his daughter's birth was long gone. He barely smiled, and then cruelly; his blue eyes flashed with anger. Perhaps it was who John would always have grown to be, but Isobel suspected that watching his brother raise his daughter had turned him from a sweet boy to a bitter, angry man.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter summary:**

Isobel is in college, and she and her new best friend Alaric Saltzman are hands-down the two coolest people in the history of everything. And then they fall in love, and Isobel goes into a blind panic.

**Pairing**: Isobel/Alaric.

**Warnings**: Mild drug use, self-injury, alcohol abuse.

* * *

No costume is flawless; masks break and sometimes the personas get mixed up along the way. In the years after she gave her daughter up, gave her beautiful, eccentric aunt up, gave John Gilbert and his pretty lies up, Isobel woke up as often as not clawing at her chest, crying until her head throbbed and her eyes burned.

Isobel traced her pain on her arms with a sharp knife. Traced thicker lines for her daughter, thinner lines for Genevieve and John. Horizontal for the girls she used to be, vertical for each lie too easily told. The only outward sign that she was the soul-destroyed creature she knew very well that she was. Isobel imagined that if you cut her open she would have black organs, so much so that the red blood she bled always gave her a mild surprise.

Isobel didn't keep a friend for longer than a year, a lover for longer than a night, even once she started at USC. She never slept over. Part of her mystique. She'd lie on the bed long moments, after the love was over and done with, kiss the poor fool one last time and then start to dress. He'd sit up, surprised.

"You're not staying?" he'd ask.

"I never stay," she'd answer, all breathy, smiling. "I never stay." Sometimes she never acknowledged them later, either. Sometimes she'd reward their confused stares across the cafeteria with a sad, mysterious look of regret. She loved that they wanted her. She loved the ones that kissed her scars and told her they were beautiful, but she only loved them until she hated them and then she left.

At USC she was an orphan, too, with no family of any sort except the Bulgarian ancestry she was by now obsessed with. Isobel hadn't seen her family since the summer break after her freshman year, and she suspected they were as relieved by the arrangement as Isobel was. She was too changeable. Had worn too many faces, until they never knew which one was real.

Truth be told, Isobel had no idea who she was, either. Wasn't sure there was a real girl left at all, behind the flakes of theatrical makeup and the tattered costumes.

She spent her summers working in bars and sleeping with men whose names she couldn't remember the next day.

In a brief fit of need, need for something normal and real, Isobel tried therapy. Only for a few weeks. She told select people the therapist was so freaked out by her baggage that he asked her not to come back but the truth was that Isobel wasn't making any progress because she wouldn't tell the man a single thing that was true, and he knew it; recommended she come back when she was prepared to give therapy an actual try.

Isobel decided therapy was for people who thought they had an even-or-better chance at un-fucking themselves up.

Once, in her senior year, close to graduating, waiting to hear about graduate studies at Duke, Isobel took a pill she was offered at a party by a girl with pale pink hair wearing fairy wings. The girl smiled as Isobel washed the pill down with water and then pressed her lips to Isobel's.

"You'll learn a lot about yourself tonight," she said, and Isobel felt a faint prickle of alarm.

It turned out to be true, in a way. Isobel learned introspection was impossible when you weren't real, when everything about you was artifice. Looking deep inside herself she saw only the tattered remnants of the lies she wore. Wondered how, empty as she was, everything could still be so painful.

The next day, after cleaning and bandaging three deep cuts on her arm, Isobel walked to the post office and when the letter from Duke was miraculously there, she shook and shook and shook until she could walk again. Got terribly drunk. Cried into her gin and plotted out the next costume.

The student loans were going to cripple her, but Isobel didn't care. And she didn't tell anyone from USC where she was going. It wasn't the first time she'd packed her life up and broken every tie she had, and it seemed unlikely that it would be the last.

* * *

Isobel was technically enrolled to do her graduate studies in anthropology. A specific branch that dealt with legends and folklore. Isobel had never really believed there were vampires – even when John promised her they were real – but the idea of them made her feel better, for minutes at a time, so she was exploring them in theory.

Isobel liked the new costume. She had chosen studious, yet unrestrained and adventurous. No family and no ties were the only parts of the old costume that she kept. The box in her heart provided all she needed, and Isobel knew how to lie, by now; there was no baby at sixteen, no John. Isobel had no history at all, sprung fully formed from a volcano.

It was February, and Isobel was drinking with friends at a small bar not far from the campus. Linda was her neighbor, matching tiny one-room flats on the third floor, and Jane was Linda's best friend, since they were children – the novelty of a person you wanted to keep for that long was intriguing to Isobel, and she enjoyed their company. The three girls were sitting at the bar.

"I need to get laid," Isobel said, eyeing a group of gorgeous guys in the corner, playing pool.

One stood out – not the tallest in the group, but tall, with sandy, dark blond hair. His eyes were dark – maybe grey-blue, maybe brown – and he moved with an easy grace. Unfortunately, he appeared to be flirting with another guy. So typical.

It was also sort of beautiful. Isobel smiled to herself as her friends giggled and bickered.

An hour later, Isobel found mister sandy hair and lazy grin standing alongside her at the bar. She smiled widely and leaned back. "Hi," she said.

"Hello," he answered, digging though his pockets.

"I was just saying to my friends here that all the cutest guys at Duke are gay. Totally unfair." Isobel cocked her head. He laughed.

"I'm not gay!" he said. "Stop trying to categorize me."

Isobel felt her heart stutter a moment; it was a little like falling through time, to see a man inhabit his own body so comfortably. Although he looked nothing like John Gilbert, he had the same lazy, relaxed air John had once worn.

He ordered a drink, and Isobel found herself staring at his mouth. "Not that it's any of your business, but I'm like a… three. Maybe a two and a half." He was tipsy, heading for drunk.

Isobel laughed. "From where I'm standing, you're at least an eight." She offered her hand. "Isobel Flemming," she said.

"Alaric Saltzman," he answered. "And I meant the Kinsey scale."

"Alaric. Interesting name, Alaric. King of the Visigoths, yes? I like it. So what is it? Two and a half, or three?"

"Well. Today my girlfriend – of a year, mind you – told me she's been sleeping with her academic advisor. So right now I suspect all women are evil. I might even be a four."

"I hope not," Isobel said. "it would be very sad if the women of Durham all got tarred by the same brush. I think we should be best friends, by the way."

Alaric laughed. "You do?" he slurred. "I'll go and get one of those heart pendants you break in half."

Isobel took a sharpie out of her bag and took Alaric's arm, writing her cell phone number on his wrist. "Call me tomorrow whenever you wake up and we'll go eat greasy breakfast, see if we can cure the hangover you're going to have."

"I'll do that," he said, paying for his drinks. "Have a good night."

"Who was that?" Linda asked, grinning. "He was gorgeous."

"My new best friend," Isobel answered.

Isobel wasn't sure whether or not she was surprised the next day when Alaric called. "How are the Visigoths?" she asked him.

"Hung-over, and interested in the greasy breakfast you suggested."

They met at an all day diner just off campus and smoked too many cigarettes and drank too much coffee. Alaric was a history student with a keen mind, even if it was damped right now by the booze filtering through his pores. They went to the cinema in the afternoon and had nachos and beer for dinner, shared stories (his, Isobel suspected, were all true, and to be fair, so were a good proportion of hers) and agreed they were a best-friend match made in heaven.

* * *

It was fun, being a best friend again. Enough fun so that Isobel kept the same persona right up until everything changed. Experimental, bored academic suited her. She and Alaric strutted around the campus like they owned it.

Alaric's friends were great, too, adopting Isobel like a stray cat. It was like having a family again. A family who actually liked her. She liked their anything-goes approach to the world. She liked the fact that Alaric might call her at one in the morning to say he and his friend Ben (second-best-friend, she thought, privately, and never said it out loud because poor Ben was in love with Alaric and Alaric didn't even seem to know) had procured real absinthe and spent half the night trying to find proper sugar cubes, and now that they had them they were about to fuck themselves up.

Adventures like these Isobel would never say no to.

It was great _having_ a best friend, too. Alaric was a fantastic best friend. More than once, he held Isobel's hair back while she puked, after some ridiculously protracted night at a bar, tequila shots and beer all round.

Unfortunately he was also very kind, and that made it hard to look him in the eye, sometimes. When Isobel got the flu, Alaric cooked her chicken noodle soup and brought her videos to watch.

"You really need a mom around at times like this," Alaric said, stretching out on the bed alongside Isobel, while she shivered and sweated. "Where are your parents?"

"I don't have any," Isobel deadpanned. "I was hatched from a meteor. And stop cuddling. You'll get sick too."

"I never get sick," Alaric insisted, gathering Isobel into the crook of his arm.

And they slept their way through half the postgraduate student body, trading ridiculous stories over Sunday afternoon drinks. "You know how to avoid the walk of shame?" Isobel asked one lazy Sunday afternoon, drinking with Ben and Alaric and a couple of girls Isobel vaguely knew from a literature tutorial, one of whom was wearing the dress she'd gone out in the night before. Isobel was being worldly and wise, that afternoon. Ben shot Alaric a look.

"Drink less? Go home with fewer regrettable strangers?" Ben asked Isobel.

"Ew. No. Regrettable strangers are what these years are for." Isobel cleared the condensation off her glass with the blade of her hand.

Alaric stretched his lean form out, trademark easy grin playing out over his features. "Isobel's system is totally foolproof. She never has to do the walk of shame because she…"

Isobel and Alaric chimed in together as they leaned their faces closer and Alaric caught her chin in his hand. "…never sleeps over." They both leaned away again, Alaric's smile fond and bright as a beacon.

"Really?" One of the girls asked; the one, it should be noted, who was _not_ wearing a sparkly dress that barely covered her ass. "I love sleeping over."

"All that morning conversation. Oh, it was so great, we should see each other again, let's go for some breakfast…" The shudder that rocked Isobel's body was not forced, but the smile she kept on her face was.

"Yeah…" the girl looked doubtful. "Still. Morning sex."

* * *

Isobel and Alaric had been doing what they were doing (whatever it was they were doing; Isobel liked to think of them as just straight-up being the two most awesome people in the world) for over two years the day everything changed. Their usual main activities – drinking too much and alternately mocking everyone and waxing lyrical about the beauty of higher education – had been abandoned for an afternoon, and they were actually studying. Alaric was sitting at one end of the couch in Isobel's on-campus one-room apartment (graduate housing at Duke was so much better than the hideous dorms of Isobel's undergraduate days at USC), with a book in his hand. Isobel was stretched out with her feet in Alaric's lap, laptop on her thighs.

Isobel glanced up to find Alaric grinning lazily at her. "What?" she asked.

"I love you," Alaric said. "You know that?"

Isobel grabbed a cushion, hit him in the face with it. "Of course I do, doofus. I was the one who decided we were best friends, remember?" She returned to her computer.

Alaric reached out a meaty hand, closed the laptop. Took it from her.

"Hey," Isobel protested. "I was being productive." She slumped against the couch, feigning irritation.

It was the work of less than a second for Alaric to gather Isobel in his arms and press their mouths together. Isobel found herself responding, for a moment, and then panic gripped her heart and she started to push him away.

"Ric – stop."

Alaric narrowed his eyes. "What? Why?"

Isobel pushed her way out of his arms, his lap, and folded herself into the smallest imaginable space. "You need to leave, Alaric. Now."

"No, Isobel," Alaric insisted, shaking his head. Confused. Why was he confused? "I want us to talk about this." He reached out a hand to touch her, leaning his body until her only course was to leap off the couch.

"I said get out. Get out. I'll destroy you, I will."

"Is… we make sense together. You know we do." Alaric was standing as well, a fair distance, but so tall, towering over her tiny frame, but while he was sad and still, Isobel was like a cornered housecat. She reached for the first thing she saw, a book, and threw it at him.

"You asshole," Isobel said, shocked to find she was crying. Couldn't remember the last time she'd cried in front of someone. "I haven't been a best friend for… I don't even know how long. And you had to fuck it all up. Fuck off, Ric. I don't want you here. I don't need you."

Isobel would never forget the look of grief in his eyes; his supplicant hands, held just so, the slump to his shoulders. He tried one more time.

"Can we just forget… what I said, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it. Please, Is…"

"Just go," Isobel said, collecting herself, and Alaric just went.

Everything sucked after that. Isobel liked strutting around, a wood nymph trailing a handsome history student alongside her, and without him the strutting seemed silly, somehow. She walked, instead, ambled a little. Neither mode of transportation suited the costume at all.

Isobel almost grieved. Almost regretted it.

She had been a girlfriend, once, remembered lazy afternoons in the hammock with John, sleepy and happy. Remembered him buying her a hot chocolate, giving her his marshmallows, feeding her the froth off the top. Since then she'd been lover, girl who doesn't sleep over, girl who doesn't come back. Girl who doesn't need anyone.

She sort of missed being a girlfriend.

Isobel stood naked in front of her full-length mirror, smoothed the soft curls she usually straightened. Unsmoothed them. Scrutinized her breasts, the belly that had once been distended in favor of the infant Elena. Shapely legs. The neat tuft of hair at their junction. Could she do it? Be a girlfriend again?

It didn't matter. Isobel had driven Alaric away. She saw him, sometimes, neck slumped a little, Ben's watchful eyes on him always, and wondered if there was anything she could do, ever, to fix things.

One Saturday night, five minutes from leaving a bar with a man Isobel knew she would regret in a not-insubstantial way, Isobel slipped out, instead, drunk and lonely, and with a broken cell phone in her pocket. Walked until she found a pay phone, walked further until she found one that didn't have gum in the coin slot, and dialed Alaric's number.

Alaric should have been in a bar. Should have been five minutes himself from leaving with a pretty education major, or a strapping archaeology graduate, or, hell, Ben. But he was somewhere quiet, his flat, perhaps.

"Hello?" came his quiet, calm voice. Isobel opened and closed her mouth. "Hello?" he said again.

Anybody else would have hung up, figured a bad line, but Alaric said hello five times, and then "Isobel?"

She hung up the phone and jumped in a taxi, home where it was safe.

* * *

Walking from the library the following Wednesday night, Isobel heard the still-foreign chirp of her new cell phone, somewhere in the bottom of her oversized bag, and dropped to her knees to search through and find it. Linda.

"Hey, doll," she sang into the phone.

Linda was laughing. "Is… how far away are you?"

"From…?"

"Home."

Isobel felt suddenly uncomfortable. "Five minutes, maybe? Why?"

There was a strange sound in the background, and a broken cackling laughter. "Because Alaric Saltzman is _serenading_ you, out in the courtyard. He doesn't believe you're not here because you should be watching some TV show that finished a few minutes ago. He has wine, and flowers. And he's _singing_. You got the singing bit, right?"

Isobel's skin wasn't fitting quite right. She was silent for long enough for the ice caps to melt and freeze again, and all she could say was "I didn't know Ric could sing."

"Oh, honey…" Linda laughed. "He really, really can't." She hung up.

It seemed to take a very long time, despite the distinct scuttling Isobel was doing, to get to her block. She knew she was getting close by the crowd standing back and watching; watching Alaric, watching the window, the least sensitive of them covering their ears against the worst rendition of "Ain't no sunshine" anyone had ever heard and hopefully would ever hear. Waiting to see if Isobel would open her window.

Summer was close and night was only just beating out the day, and Alaric was tall and lovely. And judging by the way he was swaying, maybe just a little drunk.

A laughing couple close to the outside of the circle clutched each other's hands in mirth. Isobel sidled up to them.

"How long has he been doing that?" she whispered, conspiratorial.

The man laughed, looked at his watch. "Eight minutes, at least since we been here. If I were her, I'd least a come out and told him to fuck off by now." Thick south-western accent.

His girlfriend elbowed him, smiling at Isobel. "Isn't it romantic, though? And he's… gorgeous."

"He is that," Isobel agreed, resettling her bag on her shoulder and picking her way through the small crowd.

Alaric didn't notice. Was looking determinedly at the window. Other windows had opened. Most people were laughing, smiling, enjoying the spectacle but a few were complaining loudly. Alaric kept singing, if he wanted to call it that. Determined look on his face. Bottle of wine and two glasses at his feet and a huge bunch of flowers in his hand.

People were noticing Isobel, now, were pointing her out to each other.

Isobel actually had to step directly into Alaric's line of sight.

He did a double take, the window and Isobel.

"Season's over," Isobel said, by way of explanation. "No TV for me tonight."

Alaric cocked his head. "Will you have dinner with me, or are you going to make me subject these nice people to another six choruses?"

"Ric…"

"I'm not saying marry me, Is. I'm saying… have dinner with me. I'm saying, sleep over. Sleep over with me, Is. Give it a shot. I love you," he added, smile so fond, eyes so bright, face so honest and wide open that Isobel found herself sending up a quick prayer, hoping she wouldn't fuck it up.

Isobel gave an almost invisible nod, but it was enough; Alaric dropped the flowers, whisked her off her feet and into his arms and to a chorus of claps and cheers and wolf whistles, Isobel decided to give girlfriend another try. Kissed Alaric and kissed him some more, felt his soft stubble on her softer skin.

Didn't ask herself, because she couldn't ask herself, whether the accessories (the cheering audience, the story spreading around the campus) were what made her choose, or whether it was really Alaric.

Still, never let it be said that Isobel didn't throw herself into a role. She broke every rule she had and a few she should have had. Let Alaric buy her dinner. Slept over, for the first time ever. Let him run his beautiful mouth all over her pale skin, let him make love to her. He made love to her. This wasn't sex, wasn't fucking. This was eyes-open, girl of my dreams in my arms lovemaking. It was so perfect it almost hurt, and afterwards, because Alaric was big and strong and Isobel was tiny, he held her tight, whispered a hundred reasons she should stay, until she let it sound like nonsense, and just stayed.

He rewarded her rule-breaking with early-morning love, and Isobel let him. Lay in his arms for an unreasonably long time afterwards, not speaking.

Alaric traced the scars on her arm with his fingertips. "Does this happen a lot?" he asked. "I can't believe I didn't know."

"Haven't done it since I came to Duke."

Alaric nodded. "That's good. Promise me, if you feel like doing it again…?" he kissed Isobel's forehead. "Come talk to me instead?"

Isobel shrugged. "I'm not that girl, anymore," she said, and meant it.

Months passed. Months where she and Alaric ate together and slept together and studied together and shared out every Sunday morning newspaper. Months where Alaric smiled at Isobel, held her hand as they crossed the campus, and made sure she had a good cup of coffee in the morning.

"Are you completely perfect, or do you have hidden flaws?" she asked him one morning. He was stretched out nude on Isobel's bed, one hand behind his head, all long lines and lazy smiles.

"I'm not perfect. My flaws are… not that well hidden."

"Tell me," she insisted.

His smiled dropped. "I have a temper," he admitted. "Bad temper." He winced.

"Are you a name-caller, or a hair-puller?"

"Neither." Alaric rolled over onto his stomach. "Got picked up a few times for fighting, though," he said. "Four times, before I was twenty-one. Not since," he added quickly.

"Bet they deserved it."

"Does anyone deserve to get hit?" Alaric shook his head. "Some guys would jump in and say 'take your hands off her' or wrestle a dude to the ground so he couldn't do any more damage. And nobody – nobody – gets away with calling Ben a fag. I went in with fists flying every time."

Isobel was quiet for a long moment. "Say something," he said.

"You've never hit a woman?"

"Fuck, no," Alaric said. "Never came close. Been known to hit a wall, from time to time. But I'd never hit a woman. Two of the douchebags I fought with I got into it because that's what they were doing."

Everything was going beautifully, so Isobel did her best to screw everything up. Made unreasonable demands and picked fights of her own. In a bar one night she accused Alaric of checking out every good looking guy in the place, finally storming out with him in tow.

Isobel pouted, arms crossed, in a bus stop where no bus would come until morning, and Alaric sat beside her, a safe distance away, smiling indulgently.

"I'm with you, Is… I'm not interested in anyone else." He should have been exasperated, irritated. He should have told her to stop being unreasonable. But Alaric had a beautiful heart, and instead, he swept her into his lap, tucked her into his arms, rested his chin on her head. "When are you going to trust that?"

"How can I?" she whined, disingenuous. "You've slept with some of the most beautiful boys on the whole of the Duke campus."

"So have you, babe," he agreed. "But I'm not worried. Why would you be?"

"Because…"

From time to time Isobel worried that it wasn't a costume. That the girl who was in love with Alaric, the girl who was scared, sometimes, that she might lose him, might actually be a real person. That the girl who woke in the middle of the night, surprised and relieved that he was still wrapped around he like he didn't want the night to end, that girl might be flesh and blood. Sometimes it made her want to run, and sometimes it made her want to tear at his skin, and sometimes it made her want to slump against him and let him fix everything.

Alaric was so patient, too patient.

Isobel slumped.

"Promise me," she said. "Promise you won't look at a boy again, not while you're with me."

"Can I just promise not to touch?" Alaric grinned, let their foreheads meet.

Isobel wanted to fight more but it felt so nice to rest against Alaric's body that she just let it happen.

"I'm crazy," she blurted, before she could stop. "You know I'm crazy, right?"

"Yeah," Alaric admitted. "But I love you."

"Stop it," Isobel insisted.

"I love you," Alaric said, right up against her skin, "I love you," and Isobel couldn't say it back, but she could relax her body into Alaric's so she did that instead.

* * *

Isobel got increasingly self-destructive.

When she was supposed to meet Alaric at his house or hers, she ran, instead, found a bar. Drank until she could barely see. She'd give his number to whoever was sober enough to ask if she was okay, and unfailingly, he'd come and pick her up, carry her to his car, tuck her in bed. Curl his body around hers while she cried.

"You should leave me," she'd say.

"Not going anywhere, Is. But you gotta talk to me. Why would you…" he'd sigh. "Just sleep. We can deal with it in the morning."

In an off-campus bar she'd never been to before Isobel joined a table full of guys who were drunk, and horny, and looking at her like a party favor about to get passed around. It was a busy night and the bar was full to overflowing and Isobel's lips were the source of the salt for a tequila slammer about to be drunk by a guy whose face wouldn't quite come into focus. From behind her, a second reached his hands into her shirt to squeeze roughly at her breasts. Not pleasant, but she was feeling dirty. Surely there was something she could do to make Alaric leave before he exposed her for good, or she destroyed him forever.

She straddled he lap of the two-headed tequila boy as he sucked the salt from her bottom lip.

"Isobel?"

Aiming her face in the correct direction was hard, but when Isobel managed it at last, there was, of all the improbable fuckers, Ben.

"What the fuck are you doing, Is? I have to get you home."

"She's fine where she is," the boy said, mouthing at her neck, but it was unbearable, now; Isobel extricated herself from his arms and tried to climb over the table, but the guy grabbed the back of her jeans.

Isobel lost her balance – what little she had – and toppled to the ground, smacking face first against the leg of a table. Blood immediately began to gush from her nose.

Ben helped her to her feet and she clutched gratefully at him. Over her shoulder, she heard his threatening bass. "Back off. I'm taking her back to her _boyfriend_. If you're lucky, he won't come looking for you."

A bartender led them around to the staff room and fetched ice and a wet cloth and Isobel threw up in a bucket – twice – and the room spun and spun.

"Jesus fuck," she muttered.

"Ric know where you are? Hold this," Ben said, holding the ice up to her face. Isobel complied, or tried to; the ice weighed twenty pounds or more, and either her head or her hand wouldn't stop moving, maybe both.

"Whaddya reckon?" she slurred. "Call me a cab. I'm going home."

Ben shook his head, tying Isobel's hair back with a rubber band. "No way. You're not safe on your own. Taking you to Ric's."

He lifted her in a bridal carry – Ben was even bigger than Alaric, it was easy to forget, sometimes – and took her out to his car, after asking a friend to call Alaric and tell him they were on their way.

In the car, Isobel held the ice to her face and clutched a plastic bag and tried not to hate Ben; easily done when she could still feel hands on her breasts, if she thought hard enough. Ben opened his mouth, sighed, closed it again.

"What?" she barked. "Say it."

"He deserves better than this."

Isobel grunted a laugh. "No shit."

The streets were empty, but wet, and it took nearly half an hour to get back to Alaric's apartment. By the time they were there, Isobel's heart was racing; furious, again furious, and while Ben guided her up the stairs, catching her when she stumbled, she wouldn't let him carry her.

Alaric was standing outside his door when she arrived and pushed past him. He was speaking, but she paid no attention; called him an asshole, and other things, and locked the bathroom door behind her. Quiet, she tried to listen to what they were saying, and jumped when she heard the unmistakable sound of a fist meeting the wall.

Oh, god, he was furious.

Isobel grabbed her cell from her pocket and called the police.

"My boyfriend punched me in the face," she whispered. "I'm afraid he's going to kill me."

* * *

It didn't take long before they arrived; she heard Alaric let him in, the shocked tone; "I didn't touch her. She was drunk, in a bar, fell off a table… Look, my best friend was there. He saw it, brought her home. Call him. She won't come out of the bathroom. She's just been screaming at me."

She had? Isobel catalogued everything, realized her voice was raw. Also, that she had no real idea of how long she'd been in the bathroom. It could have been fifteen minutes, or two hours.

Isobel opened the door after a quick look in the mirror; her eyes were nearly swollen shut, her nose so swollen it was almost flat across her face.

"He punched me," she whimpered, and met Alaric's eyes.

The look of betrayal was almost too much to take.

"If you didn't hit her, what did you do to your hand?"

A policewoman was leading Isobel to the couch, while her partner questioned Alaric. "I… look, I have a temper, I punched the wall."

"Fine line, sir. We're going to take you to the station."

"Is. Tell them."

"I want a restraining order," she said, and turned her face away. "He's violent. He has a record. Four violent assaults."

"Is that right," the policeman said, and drifted away to speak into his radio.

They waited until an ambulance arrived for Isobel, Alaric looking defeated on a chair at the dining table. He didn't say a word in his own defense. Isobel felt powerful, monstrous. Fake.

At the hospital, Isobel had an X-ray – her nose wasn't broken – and they continued to ice her face. Plugged her into an IV tube full of what looked like yellow Gatorade. A little after sunrise, she started to cry.

A policewoman sat at her side, handed her a Kleenex. "I need to take a statement. Your request for a restraining order has been filed but you'll need to be in court this morning to make it official. He won't have to be there, don't worry. This is all about your safety."

"He didn't do it."

The woman said nothing, for a time, and it was too silent in the cubicle when there was too much noise and rushing around outside of it. "I see this all the time, Miss Flemming. If you're afraid, we can protect you."

"Call Ben Alder." Isobel passed her phone. "I was drunk in a bar and he came to pick me up. He'll tell you. I was making out with this horrible guy… Ben tried to help me and I was a total bitch and I fell off the table and I…" She began to cry in earnest. "I'm a horrible girlfriend," she confessed, but the woman would have none of it.

"No one deserves to be hurt like this, Miss Flemming. We can protect you. I'll take your statement now and we can wait a day or two for court. You -"

"You're not listening. Call the bar. Call Ben Alder. A hundred people saw me fall off that table." Isobel pulled the IV from her arm. "Call anyone. I want to see Ric. Now," she said. "I have to fix this."

It took most of the day. Sitting in the waiting room at the police station Ben wouldn't even look at Isobel. She cried quietly, dabbing at tears. At last, Alaric came out. He looked from Isobel to Ben, and back again.

"You got a way to get home?" he asked Isobel.

She nodded. "Ric… I'm…"

"I need a bit of time, Is," he said, and it wasn't unkind, the way he said it; just matter of fact.

She called him back. "Are you angry?"

Ben and Alaric both turned, incredulous.

"I'm not angry, Is," Alaric said. "I'm… I'm fucking heartbroken."

The heavy door slammed closed, and Isobel gave them a few minutes to get away before she stepped out into the street to hail a cab.

* * *

She called, she texted. He didn't answer. Isobel confessed the whole thing to Linda and Jane, who could barely look at her.

"I fucked up. _I'm_ fucked up. I know. How do I fix it?" she poured another glass of wine.

"Less of this, maybe, for a start," Linda said, about to take the glass away.

"Fuck that. I've never needed a drink so badly in my life." She drained half the glass, and then hated herself for it. "Do you think I've completely blown it?"

Jane was blunt. "Yes. But Alaric is a much nicer person than I am. Maybe you'll get lucky."

"I think I might have used up the last of my luck when he fell for me in the first place," Isobel said.

It was maybe a week later that Isobel spotted Alaric, Ben, and a couple of other friends eating breakfast at an on-campus diner. Not one of the usual ones. Confirmed what Isobel suspected, that he was going out of his way to avoid seeing her. Not that she blamed him.

Isobel sat down at the table, taking the last available seat.

Ben shook his head. "I don't think so," he started.

"It's alright, Ben. I'll just keep my hands where everyone can see them, will I?" Alaric held his hands a little above the table.

"I deserved that. I…"

"Yes you did. You should -"

"Ben. Shut up." Alaric sounded exhausted. _I did that_, Isobel thought. _I'm the reason he's tired like that_. She took in the dark shadows under his eyes, dull eyes, not sparkling. Not Alaric.

Isobel chose her words carefully. The other two men had left, and it was only Alaric and Ben. If Alaric didn't ask Ben to leave, Isobel wasn't going to do it.

"I am a horrible person," Isobel started.

"You're not horrible. You drink too much and you need therapy. There's a difference." Alaric didn't look at her as he said it.

"I'll do it. I'll drink less. I'll go to therapy. Whatever you want, I swear, Ric. Just tell me I haven't fucked this up for good?"

Alaric met her eyes at last; needy, miserable. He still loved her. That was a surprise, and a relief. Ben pulled out his wallet, threw down a ten dollar note. "Your funeral, Ric," he said bitterly, as he stalked away.

Isobel wanted to reach out, take Alaric's hand. She didn't.

"Can you forgive me?"

"Can things change? I have a reputation as… Jesus, Is, you should see the way they look at me. The people on my block. I think I'm going to have to move. There's egg all over the door to my apartment, every night when I get home. Someone wrote 'girl-bashing cunt' in lipstick on the wall. You know how hard that is to scrub off?"

Isobel felt tears fall from her eyes. "Okay," she said. "Okay. I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone." She climbed to her feet, slowly, limbs heavy. Alaric took her wrist, and then dropped it again.

"Things have to change," he said again. "Anything like this ever happens again… and I can't. I won't."

Isobel sat again. "Does that mean we can try?"

Alaric nodded. Held her gaze like it was a challenge. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look angry, either. "Dinner tonight? We should talk."

Isobel smiled. "Your place at seven?"

"No." Alaric shook his head. "Somewhere public. I'll text you later. I have to go," he said, and with a half smile, hitched up his rucksack and walked away.

It was nearly six slow, careful weeks later before Alaric spent the night again.

He kissed Isobel until she was buzzing beneath him, covered her with whisper-soft caresses until she had to take control herself, guide him where she needed him. He was cautious, but not for long, and at last, they were sharing the first non-self-administered orgasm either had enjoyed in weeks. Afterwards, she lay in Alaric's arms, relieved beyond the telling of it.

"I love you, Is," he whispered, running his lips over the shell of her ear. "Let's not fuck this up. Deal?"

"I swear. I swear."

She meant it. She did.

* * *

Isobel hadn't told anyone she loved them since the day John Gilbert gave her his ring. And no matter how real it felt she couldn't say it to Alaric.

She tried. She tried. She'd open her mouth to say it and instead, she'd say, "what time does your meeting finish tonight?" Or "do you want another coffee?"

Sometimes, Isobel tried it out the mirror. "I love you," she said. Different syllables stressed. "I _love_ you. I love _you_. _I_ love _you_. I _love you_." Fake, all so fake.

Different facial expressions. The fond expression Ben had when he looked at Alaric and knew Alaric couldn't see him. A poor imitation of the way Alaric looked at Isobel. Romantic scenes from movies. But she couldn't compete with Alaric. Usually, Alaric would find some perfect, tender moment to say, so perfectly, unforced and unpracticed, _I love you_, and Isobel would kiss him silent, or tell him to shut up.

Until the day Alaric stuck his head into the bathroom, and Isobel turned on her heel; "I love you," she said, instantly horrified. Alaric's face cracked open. He drew her to him, covered her in his big hands, smothered her face in kisses.

"I've been waiting so long to hear you say that," Alaric admitted. "Love you so much, Is. So much." He traced, delicate as delicate, the planes of her face, holding her eyes. Didn't seem to notice her freeze beneath him. Gave a little groan and pulled her in, rested her head on his chest. "We're good, now, right?"

It had been a year.

It takes practice, telling someone you love them, but it gets easier with time, and Isobel got the hang of it.

Being with Alaric, being with him every day and most nights, was the realest thing Isobel had ever done. The little things he did to show her he loved her. Stopped cooking with so much chili. Made sure there was milk in his fridge even though he never used it for anything himself. Wrapped his arms around her when they slept.

The big things. A birthday weekend in New York. Alaric hated New York, said it made him claustrophobic, but he'd smiled all weekend through the snow and the sleet, taken Isobel to the MOMA, to a Broadway show, taken her to a fancy restaurant in a tall building where they could see the lights twinkling below.

It had been nearly two years when Alaric asked Isobel to come and have Thanksgiving with his parents.

"I know it's hard, Is, because you're an orphan." He tangled Isobel's fingers in his own. They were sitting in a bar, but unusually sober. "And my parents are a little weird. They were in their forties when I was born, and they're close to seventy now, so they can seem a little out of touch." He tapped the back of Isobel's hand with his thumb. "Just a couple of days. I want them to meet you."

Not for the first time, Isobel got the urge to admit she was lying – had loving parents and two loving sisters less than a day's drive away, but that not understanding each other had seemed to all to be a reasonable reason to cut ties. She knew she wouldn't. Alaric meeting them would inevitably lead to Alaric finding out about Elena and that could never, ever happen.

Isobel went to Boston for Thanksgiving. She was charming, and Alaric's parents were charmed. Isobel pored over old photographs and listened to the narrative, smiling as watched Alaric grow from a small boy with white blonde hair to a gangly teenager with Ben always by his side. The photos almost stopped there, when Alaric went to college. After that, the occasional photograph from Thanksgiving or Christmas.

"Ben," Isobel said, tracing his form. It was a photo from high school and just like now, Ben's face was angled just a little towards Alaric's. Alaric was looking straight ahead at the camera.

"Nice boy," Mrs. Saltzman said. "He's still around?" Her eyes were all-knowing.

"Yes," Isobel answered, "And he still looks at Alaric like the sun shines right out of him."

"The way my Alaric looks at you." Mrs. Saltzman nodded.

"No," Isobel argued. "The way _my_ Alaric looks at me."

* * *

Naturally enough, such progress could only be followed with another monumental effort to fuck things up.

Isobel left campus one evening and trekked until she found a bar she'd never been in. She drank quickly, too quickly, and it wasn't until she stood to use the bathroom that she realized how drunk she actually was.

She was quite suddenly on her hands and knees on the floor, everyone giving her a wide berth. Isobel reached for a chair to pull herself up on, and then slipped on something – or maybe just fell, hard to tell with her senses on mute. A security guard helped her to her feet.

He spoke, but made no sense.

Isobel handed over her cell phone – or at least pointed it at him. She may or may not have said "Call Alaric." Either way, some time later, Alaric appeared, looking exhausted. He lifted her out of the booth the security guard had seated her in.

"When they can't walk any more," Alaric spat, "You're supposed to stop serving them."

It was the last thing Isobel remembered until Alaric parked the car. "Where are we?" she muttered.

"Your place. I'm putting you to bed." He carried her up the stairs as she dozed on his shoulder, and put her on the bed. He arranged her limbs carefully, so she wouldn't roll, she thought, and then left, letting the door click quietly behind him.

Son of a bitch.

Isobel got out of bed, guided herself by touch to her kitchenette. Under the sink was a bottle of red wine she hadn't finished. She worked the cork out with her teeth, holding herself steady, and poured the rest into a mug. She leaned heavily against the counter, when the room tilted alarmingly.

Isobel barely had the mug brought to her lips when she heard Alaric speak. "What are you doing?"

"Thought you left," Isobel slurred, trying for a second time to drink from the mug. She hit it hard against her lip, tasted blood.

"I had to move the car out of the loading zone. You're drunk, Isobel. You don't need any more."

Alaric reached for the mug but, Isobel noted, he stood as far away as he could as he did it. Asshole.

"Fuck you, Ric," she said. "Fuck off."

He snatched the mug. Threw it across the room, where it smashed against the wall, leaving an obscene red splash. And then he left, he just left.

Isobel didn't clean it up; she called the police, instead.

"My boyfriend hit me again," she said.

* * *

"I am fucking crazy," she promised the police officer. "I need psychiatric help. Alaric Saltzman is the nicest man you'll ever meet. He would never hit a woman."

"You yourself pointed out he has a history, Miss Flemming…"

"Did you even read those reports? Two of the guys he fought with were hitting their girlfriends. One had smashed a bottle over a bartender's head."

"And how did you hurt your lip?"

"I smashed my own face with the mug of wine I was drinking from." Isobel shook her head. "Come on. Alaric's a big guy. If he punched me, do you think I'd have a tiny cut and a swollen lip?"

"So usually, when he punches you, there's a lot more to see?"

Oh, god, the hangover. The hangover. Isobel couldn't win a showdown with a preschooler.

"He's never, never so much as laid a hand on me. Ask anyone we know. Anyone. I'm a fucking liar. I lie about everything. Constantly."

"You said he won't let you see your family. Is he keeping you a prisoner?"

"He thinks they're dead. Oh god. Did I really say that? Does he know that?" Isobel cried some more. "He's never going to forgive me for this."

The officer held Isobel's eyes for so long that she felt her retinas burn.

"Alright," he said. "If you won't lay charges there's nothing we can do anyway."

It was a repeat of the last time, with Ben in a chair on one side of the waiting room and Isobel on the other. This time, though, when Alaric came through the swinging double doors, he didn't ask if she had a way to get home. Didn't even look her way. Ben rose to his feet.

"Ric?"

He turned, then, he did, and his face was the worst thing Isobel had ever seen. He had to have been crying half the night and Isobel had never seen him so much as shed a tear, before. He looked hurt and angry and ten years older.

_I did that_, Isobel thought.

"Stay. The fuck. Away from me, Isobel. We are _done_."

* * *

The couch was the most uncomfortable thing Isobel had ever sat in.

"I don't know where to start."

"Start at the beginning." The therapist, call-me-Jenny, had a kind face, too kind. Brilliant blue eyes set in a soft face with wonderful deep lines. Grey hair in a thick rope of braid tumbling down her back. Like maybe aunt Genevieve would look, by now. Approachable and hippyish. She looked unshockable. Isobel wanted to test the theory.

"I'm a liar," Isobel said. The therapist said nothing. They did this, Isobel had heard. Give you all the space you need until you're confessing and confessing and you can't stop. "I'm sitting here thinking about lying to you, making up stuff that's so bad you throw your hands up and tell me there's no hope for me."

"Let's take that off the table. Tell me. What are some of the biggest lies you've ever told?"

Isobel rolled her shoulders in, covered her face with her hands. "I had a baby when I was sixteen and absolutely no one knows about it."

"I'm not sure that's as bad as you think, Isobel. You were a teenager. It's up to you whether the people who are a part of your life now know about it."

"I'm here because of my boyfriend. The only… Not my boyfriend, not any more. He'll never speak to me again." And it all tumbled out. Telling Alaric she had no family, calling the police on him, the restraining orders. By the time the therapist leaned forward in her chair, Isobel was crying so hard she couldn't see.

"Time's up," she said. "Same time next week."

Isobel was shocked. "You're sending me away?"

"Therapy is a process. You'll see me once a week until we agree you're ready to stop."

"Am I one of your worst patients?" She wanted to hear '_yes, I doubt anyone can help, anyone at all_.'

Instead, call-me-Jenny smiled again. "I'll see you next week, Isobel."

Isobel saw less of her friends, tried to focus on her studies. Sketched for the first time in years and was amused to discover she hadn't improved in the interim. Drank only one night a week, and not alone, and not to excess. Started going for long walks that slowly morphed into gentle jogs.

"I never told Alaric I was an orphan. He just assumed."

Call-me-Jenny nodded. "Why would he assume something like that?"

"I wouldn't talk about them. What sort of an asshole assumes your parents are dead, just because you don't want to talk about them?" Isobel was pacing, as she sometimes did. "Asshole."

"What have you told him about them?"

"I told him I was hatched from a meteor."

There was a long silence. Call-me-Jenny broke it, at last, by laughing. "Perhaps in the future he'll learn to be more literal."

Isobel sat down to write a statutory declaration about the assaults and cried for half the night. She called Ben from a pay phone.

"Don't hang up," she said, by way of greeting.

"You have thirty seconds."

"I'm writing a stat dec about the… about the times I called the police. Will you do it too? Back up what I say? You saw what happened, at the bar, that first time," she said. "It'll carry more weight if you do it too," she added.

"They have my statement. If you don't lie, it'll support what I said. Isobel?"

"Yes?"

"Don't lie," he said, and hung up.

* * *

There had always been exactly one person in the whole world who knew the whole truth about Isobel Flemming, and that was Isobel Flemming. After nine months of therapy (the time frame was not lost on Isobel; it was like giving birth to herself) there were two. Call-me-Jenny hugged her on the last day and praised her progress.

"You've come a long way, Isobel, dear." She patted Isobel on the shoulder. "You know where I am if you need to see me again."

"What if he won't talk to me?"

"You'll have to respect that. And if he doesn't want to talk to you, you deal with it how?"

Isobel pulled out of the embrace. "Anything but getting drunk."

Isobel spent most of an afternoon preparing to face Alaric for the first time in over nine months. She made notes for herself, everything she wanted to say, and then scrunched them up.

She went to his new apartment – had discreetly followed him there one afternoon, since no one would tell her where he lived. She gathered all the breath she needed to knock.

And she didn't knock. She paced, instead, breathed some more. Made awkward eye contact with a few people who walked down the corridor to their own rooms.

"Are you looking for someone?" asked a pretty girl with an even prettier girl's arm around her waist. "You looking for Ric?"

The door opened.

Alaric stood there, all six feet of him, eyes soft and sad and determined. He smiled at the girls. "I've got it, Cass, Jo."

Eyes bright and curious, they nodded and kept walking, giggling into each other's mouths, giving Alaric approving looks.

"Can we talk?"

Alaric looked away. Paused for a long moment. "Fine," he said, and stepped inside. Isobel made as if to follow him, but he turned. "Getting my jacket. I'll talk, but somewhere public."

Isobel nodded.

Silently, they walked to a coffee shop a couple of doors away from Alaric's apartment. Neither said a word until their coffees were delivered, and the smile Alaric shot the waitress was so beautifully and perfectly Alaric that Isobel wanted to reach all the way back, back years, to the moment she told him her very first lie, and start again.

"What did you want to talk about?" Alaric stirred his coffee slowly, and with no need. He hadn't added milk or sugar. It was hypnotic, the way he stirred it. Around and around.

"I'm sorry," Isobel said. All notes and thoughts gone and lost. This was all there was left; _I'm sorry_.

"Is that it?" He didn't sound angry, or even hurt. More like he was looking forward to being allowed to leave.

"No," Isobel said. "I… I've been in therapy, ever since," she said. "It was horrible."

Alaric lifted his eyebrows. "It's not supposed to be fun," he said. "And?"

"I've changed." Even as she said it, she wasn't sure if it was true.

There was another long silence. Isobel was about ten seconds off starting to talk, and just never stopping. He was like call-me-Jenny. Leaving her enough rope to hang herself with.

"Why did you tell me your parents were dead?"

Oh, god. So they had relayed that particular accusation. The first answer than came to mind was '_I didn't, you just assumed_' and the second was '_none of your business_'.

"I haven't spoken to them since the end of Freshman year. We don't… get along."

"You could have told me that."

Isobel tore open a sugar packet and topped off her coffee. Already nearly too sweet to drink but she had to do something, anything, and she certainly couldn't look at Alaric.

"Are you seeing anybody?"

She wished she could bite the words back as soon as she shaped them. Alaric snorted. "No," he said, sitting back. "Finding I have some… trust issues."

"Well, your last girlfriend was a psychopath," Isobel answered. "But don't let that put you off."

"And the fact I missed her? What does that say about me?"

Isobel didn't dare breathe.

"Maybe you need therapy too," she said, aiming for levity, missing by a mile.

* * *

It took a careful, slow, three months before they really found their way back. They dated, that's all, until one night Alaric kissed Isobel goodbye at the door, and she led him inside.

He looked uncomfortable, for a moment, when she shut the door behind him.

"I promise, I promise, Alaric. I'm different," she said. "I swear to you, babe, I will never hurt you again."

She meant it, she did.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter summary:**

Isobel and Alaric have been happy for quite some time when a chance meeting with a parapsychologist sends Isobel's career in a new direction, and propels her back into her obsession with vampires.

**Pairing**: Isobel/Alaric.

**Warnings**: mild sexual content.

* * *

Things had been on track again for a year when Isobel went to Boston for Thanksgiving a second time. She offered Alaric's parents a heartfelt apology for what she had put their son through, and to their credit, they didn't argue or downplay it, nor did they drag it out unnecessarily; and things were more comfortable afterwards than they were before, so that was something, she guessed.

Alaric's birthday was a few days after Thanksgiving and they were back on campus. It was cold, unusually cold, and they were in Isobel's flat drinking hot chocolate topped off with plenty of rum and a blend of spices Alaric wouldn't reveal. They were spread out on the couch. Alaric was studying and Isobel was reading Dracula for the seven-hundredth time, her feet in his lap.

Alaric grabbed Isobel's big toe and gave it a little shake. "It's my birthday tomorrow," he said. "Let's do something."

"No," Isobel said. "It's too cold. Let's celebrate your birthday in the Spring." Truthfully she and Ben had been planning Alaric's twenty-fifth birthday for weeks. It had been a painful process. Ben was still angry, and understandably so, but this had been their way of getting used to each other again.

Alaric grumbled.

"Okay," Isobel said. "We'll do something. But it's my choice. You have to play along."

Alaric smiled at this. "If it's mini-golf, woman, we're through."

"You're just saying that because you suck so hard at it." Isobel gave him a sly grin.

Alaric set his papers aside, took Isobel's book from her hands. Dog-eared the page and put it on the ground, and then crawled until she was beneath him, smiling and giggling. "You know what I don't suck at?" he asked, unbuttoning her shirt.

"Well," she allowed. "You can cook."

Alaric was so real.

He brushed one hand up her thigh, put it between her legs and gave a little rub, until she sighed, grinding down. "And?" he asked, mouthing at her jaw and neck.

"You can play basketball," she added.

"And?" Alaric shifted his hands to undo the button on her jeans. Isobel wriggled until he was able to pull them off her, until he put his mouth where his hand had been, grazing through her moist panties with his teeth and bottom lip until she gave a throaty groan. "And?" he repeated, kissing the mound of her belly, Isobel quivering beneath him.

"You always bring me a coffee in the morning." Isobel was becoming a little incoherent as Alaric pulled her panties aside to run a single finger everywhere but where it might satisfy.

"And?"

He pulled the underwear down, at last, and then miraculously, he had two fingers in her pussy, and a thumb on her clit, and Isobel started to twitch. "Oh," she said, a desperate little mewl.

He was _just so real_ and she loved him, loved him, and not just because of this. Because of everything. Because he saw so much, and loved her anyway. Because he held her down when she thought she might float away, because he brought her to meet his parents. Because he didn't use so much chili when he cooked these days and because he was touching her exactly right and because he was kissing her like she was the best thing he'd ever tasted.

Because she had done the worst imaginable things to him, and he forgave her, brought her back to his side, loved her still.

"You're crying," he said, but not like he was concerned.

Isobel laughed as her orgasm rose, bit her lip as it shuddered through her, as she clamped silky flesh around his hand.

"I love you," she said, as the aftershocks faded. "Alaric. Do you know that?"

He looked amused, kissed her some more. "I know. I love you too." He sat up, stood up, reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet. In a surprising move he lifted her into a bridal carry, and she squawked in delight.

"But I _love_ you." As she said it she delighted not just in how easily it came to her lips but how fervently it was meant. How true and unhurried and unforced. She felt fresh tears fall as he lay her on her back and stripped his clothes away while she took off her socks, her bra.

"It almost sounds like you weren't sure before."

Alaric stretched himself over her body, shaped her breasts with his hands. Retraced the curves he knew inside out. Isobel smiled fondly, reaching for his straining cock.

"I knew," she said. "I always knew. It's just fresh right now."

Alaric looked amused until the rhythm of Isobel's hand took him out of himself again. "That's good, right?"

"It's good," she said. "It's so good," as she guided him to where she needed him and rum and the spices and the chocolate and the realest thing Isobel had ever had transported her to other lands, were there were no costumes and everything was just this good.

* * *

"It's dead," Alaric said. He sounded disappointed. Their favorite bar did, indeed, look near-deserted, but Isobel knew better.

"You said you'd play along. It's this, or we wait until the Spring. Remember?" She pushed the door open and everybody leapt up – the lights came up, the streamers were thrown, the poppers were popped and everyone shouted 'surprise!'

Alaric's face cracked open and his eyes were the widest she'd ever seen them.

All their friends poured forward, offering hugs and kisses and congratulating him on having survived to twenty-five.

It had taken time before Isobel was admitted into the inner sanctuary again; still, she really had changed. She proved it daily. Didn't force anything. Saw call-me-Jenny when she needed to. They were used to her again. None slanted a glance at her beyond a congratulations for pulling the whole thing off; she was just there, the girl at Alaric's hip.

"You did this?" Alaric asked Isobel, between hugs.

"Me and Ben," she admitted. "Couldn't have done it without him."

Ben threw a manly arm around Alaric's shoulders. "She did all the work." Didn't even sound that strained.

Alaric laughed. Transformed the one-armed embrace into a proper hug. "Bullshit," he said. "This stinks of your cunning mind."

Ben gave Isobel a wide smile and a wink over Alaric's shoulder, only a little forced.

They drank and drank and Alaric opened a small pile of gifts; ridiculous junk and booze, for the most part. A board game.

Linda leaned forward and swatted Alaric's arm. "Speech," she insisted. "Your first quarter-century. Come on."

Alaric leaned back. "I actually have something prepared."

A few faces faltered and Isobel narrowed her eyes, but it was Ben who spoke. "You knew?"

Alaric grinned, shaking his head. "No. It wasn't actually intended to be a public speech. But why the fuck not? It's my birthday, and I'll make an ass of myself if I want to."

There was a brief clatter of hands on tables as everyone drummed out their agreement. Alaric pulled his stool away from the bar and stood up.

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears," Alaric started.

From a dark corner, someone called out. "What's in the bag?"

It was an old joke but a good one, so Alaric called back "ears." Everyone laughed.

"I'm editing on the fly, here," Alaric admitted. "Thanks for being here. This is a big night for me."

There were a few strange looks around the tables and Isobel suspected her own face might betray more incredulity than most. Twenty-five was one of those years, sure, but not necessarily speech-worthy.

"There's nothing in the world more important than friends and family and as far as I'm concerned, everyone here is both. Ben – you're my brother, man, thanks for your part in all of this."

Ban gave a tense nod. Ben saw everything. Isobel realized moments later that the should have seen his expression as a flag for what was about to come.

"Isobel Flemming picked me out of a crowd in this exact bar, nearly four years ago, and decided we should be best friends." Everyone was silent now, listening. "Two years later, thanks to my terrible singing and her terrible taste in men, I convinced her we should be more than that." Everyone laughed, and a few people started sharing the story with friends too new to have heard it. "We've had some… interesting times? But here we all are. Me and my dream girl and all of our friends, who are also our family."

Alaric reached into his pocket and Isobel almost fell off her stool.

From the pocket came a box and in the box was a ring.

"Isobel Flemming. I love you. And I want you to be my wife." Alaric held the ring in his hand and when Isobel looked up his eyes were fierce on hers. "Will you do me the very great honor of marrying me?"

His eyes were sparkling but his expression was serious.

"Yes," Isobel said, without hesitation. "Fuck, yes."

The applause, the shrieking, Jesus, the tears, they were immediate. Alaric slipped the ring onto her finger like he thought he might break one or the other and then he lifted her bodily from the stool, spun her around while people reached for them both, clapping hands on shoulders. Those who weren't close enough to hug the happy couple hugged each other.

Ben smiled broadly, and when Alaric let Isobel back down onto the ground he picked her up again. "Congratulations, little sister," he said, and though it must have broken his heart, or scared him to death, he looked genuinely happy.

"What do you say, man? Stand up with me? Be my best man?" Alaric put his hand on Ben's shoulder.

"Wouldn't let anyone else do it," Ben agreed, hugging Alaric ferociously.

* * *

Hours later, in bed, Alaric and Isobel lay facing each other with the lights on, unable to stop touching though their bodies were well past the point of exhaustion. Isobel's face hurt from all the smiling but still, she smiled.

"Can we dance? At our wedding?"

Alaric laughed, pulling her closer again. "Of course we can."

"Can you dance?" Isobel asked, pulling away a little so she could see Alaric's face.

Alaric snorted. "No," he said. "Can you?"

Isobel paused. "We can learn," she said. "The Tango, the Foxtrot. We'll learn to Waltz. My Alaric. When?" She whispered into his neck. "When will we get married?"

Alaric rolled onto his back, pulling Isobel on top of himself. "I'm thinking as soon as fucking possible," he said. "You?"

Slightly less romantic and ever so practical Isobel sighed. "After graduation," she suggested. "July."

"I can live with that. Gives us time to learn to dance." Alaric grinned. "We'll know whether we're going to be PhDs by then, too. We can decide whether we'll stay here or run away to… fuck. Where will we go?"

Isobel ran her hand through his hair. "Everywhere. Italy. Germany. Australia. We'll be New York Bohemians."

"Not New York. We'll make wine in Tuscany."

"We'll have a dozen children."

"Two dozen," Alaric countered. "Three dozen."

Isobel grinned some more. "Maybe just one dozen and the rest of the time we'll just practice."

"Okay," Alaric said, holding her close. "Just a dozen. But lots of practice."

* * *

The wedding wasn't huge and wasn't expensive. Their friends, Alaric's parents. It was all they needed.

"Still," Isobel told him, the night before the wedding, when they were preparing to say their goodbyes and sleep apart for the first time in nearly a year, "I can't believe you asked Ben to be your best man."

Alaric frowned. "Who else would I ask? Why not Ben?"

"My Alaric… I think he'd rather be the bride."

Alaric had gripped her hand, hard. "He knows it can't be like that. He's okay. He's fine." He'd sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Isobel.

The day of the wedding, Isobel wept for a few moments in the bathroom for her own parents, for her sisters. Regretted the early lies and was grateful that at least everything she and Alaric were sharing now was the real, unvarnished truth.

(The issue of Isobel's parents was a prickly one, once it was out.

The last remaining lie. The infant Elena. Alaric meeting her parents and sisters would, inevitably, lead to that little piece of information coming to light, destroy all the progress they had made.

Over breakfast in a sunny café, Alaric said the last he would, on the matter. "It will never be too late for you to introduce us, Is. But if it happens in time for the wedding, everything will be that much better.")

They married in a green corner of the Duke campus. Isobel wore a white cotton dress and no veil and the weather was better than it had any right to be. Alaric's father walked her down the 'aisle', just a carpet of scattered yellow rose petals.

Isobel had vowed, during the months of therapy, that she wouldn't wear costumes any more, and in that dress, she had the strangest sensation that she was keeping her promise for the first time ever. Not dressed up in the costume of a bride; just a bride. Not even a _bride_; a girl, marrying a boy – marrying a man – who she loved, and who despite all the odds, loved her back. She had never felt so naked, in a costume everyone could so readily identify.

Holding each other's hands, Alaric read his vows first.

"Isobel Flemming. I promise to love and adore you, to care for you, to make chicken noodle soup when you're sick and never to use too much chili when I cook. I promise to check all the spelling and grammar in your dissertation and never to laugh at your crazy enthusiasms. As long as we both shall live."

"Alaric Saltzman. I promise to love and adore you, to care for you, to stop asking what spices you put in our hot chocolate and to do the dishes when you cook. I promise to be this, always, your girl. But I don't promise to obey." Everyone laughed, but none so hard as Alaric. "I do promise… not to fuck up again. My Alaric. As long as we both shall live."

With an exchange of perfectly simple silver bands, they were wed.

Isobel danced with Alaric's father until he feigned a pained hip, and then they both danced with everybody. Ben drank too much but delivered an exuberant best man speech with no hesitation. Isobel guessed that the last of his resentments had faded away at last.

"Alaric asked me to be the best man but I think we all know, deep down, that he's the best man. And that Isobel is the best woman. That they deserve each other, and that this day, we saw the beginning of the most beautiful marriage any of us ever will."

At this, Alaric pulled Isobel closer, kissed her lips.

"So if you will all charge your glasses, I give you – Alaric Saltzman and his beautiful bride, Isobel Flemming."

Alaric pulled Isobel to her feet, pulled her arm up in a victory salute.

And it was all so very, very real.

* * *

Living together went from sleeping in one flat or the other every night to moving into a new place that was theirs both from day one. Shared spaces and separate bookshelves. It would have been more practical to move in before the wedding but since they were both so busy they decided it would be cute to make the final move afterwards. Alaric carried Isobel across a new threshold less than two minutes from her old flat. They didn't leave go outside for anything, for two days. They ordered in, pretended it was a honeymoon, and promised each other a holiday when they could afford one.

"I wish we could have afforded a proper honeymoon," Isobel admitted, lying across Alaric's body, her cheek on his heart.

"Let's pretend we're somewhere else." Alaric smoothed his hand over her hair, over and over, soothing. Strong. Big, strong hands. Isobel felt tiny, wrapped in Alaric's arms. Safe.

"I always pretend I'm somewhere else," Isobel started, and then she stopped. Realizing, suddenly, that it just wasn't true any more. The thought made her smile. Alaric tipped his chin, caught Isobel's eyes with a nervous, incredulous smile.

"No," she said. "I used to. I don't anymore." Isobel strained to meet Alaric's lips in a slow, gorgeous kiss.

Bulgarian women might be prone to tragedy but that didn't mean they had no chance at a happy ending. And Alaric was born on a Tuesday.

* * *

Two weeks later, in departments just a few buildings apart, Alaric and Isobel started their doctoral studies. Alaric was planning an exposition of small-town Virginia's contribution to the Civil War. Isobel was exploring ancient cultures' versions of vampires.

She had started to think of them as life-suckers. In terms of folklore, they were a varied bunch. Some sucked out your blood, sure, and the stories about vampires were as varied as the people who passed the stories on. But in some parts of the world they sucked out your soul, or your intentions, or (in a weird and generally undocumented variation of the tale, restricted primarily to a corner of South-East Asia) your semen.

Isobel's doctoral supervisor, one Professor Mark Tucker – Tuck – took her aside in January.

"I have to entertain this crazy motherfucker, Isobel, and because I'm older and more educated than you, I'm basically planning to dump it all on you," he admitted, after their third glass of wine.

"I'm young," Isobel admitted. "I shall forbear. So who is he?"

"Name is Charles Taylor." Isobel giggled. "And seriously, I hear he doesn't react well to being called Chuck. In fact, don't wear those shoes."

Isobel sat up straighter, clamped her hands together. "What's his discipline?"

"Parapsychology," Tuck admitted. "Which brings the word 'discipline' into disrepute. But he'll be here for six months."

Isobel's heart sank, but nothing in her expression betrayed it. "Okay. Six months?" She nodded. "That's great. Has he worked in South America?" Tuck's answering smirk said 'no'.

Isobel's heart sank again.

Her first exposure to the man was at an open talk. Once a week on a Wednesday external academics were invited to speak. Mostly they were residents in whatever department was hosting them, but sometimes they were around for a conference. Generally the talks were well-enough attended by a hundred or so people.

For this talk, in a lecture room built for five hundred, it was standing room only.

Generally, if any speaker passed his allotted time by a minute, people would start to leave, but not tonight. Questions were limited to thirty minutes but no one would leave.

"The problem with poltergeists…" he said. "Wow, lady. It makes it sound like they are relatively uncomplicated. Fine. Almost all the poltergeists I've seen have been disproven."

He spent an inglorious few minutes trying to bring up a series of photographs. Everyone was captivated, cared less than nothing for the fact he couldn't manage the computer. "Poltergeists almost always appear in the presence of teenaged girls. Some parapsychologists have posited that teenaged girls attract the energies necessary to make a poltergeist manifest. I suspect that teenaged girls with adequate emotional pain can black out and break everything on hand and not really remember." He shrugged.

Isobel studied his face. He was either older or younger than she'd imagined.

"Next?" hands shot up everywhere and he looked tired, pointing.

"Are werewolves real?"

A withering look. "No. Next?"

And on, and on.

* * *

Isobel waited in the wings of the theatre for Professor Taylor to emerge.

They shook hands at last, and Isobel spoke. Introduced herself, first, and then confessed; "Tuck couldn't stay. Children, responsibilities, etc. But I'm not really a suitable guide, unless you want to get terribly drunk."

Charles raised his eyebrows. He hoisted his bag up onto his shoulder. "Actually, getting terribly drunk sounds like an excellent idea. I haven't been drunk on this campus since, well. It was a long time ago." He stood straight. "Shall we? And call me Chuck," he added.

Ensconced in the dark corner of a fabled bar, Isobel asked questions. Polite and studious. "So tell me, have you actually found any ghosts?"

Charles hesitated. "Perhaps." He poured cheap beer from a pitcher. "I've found things I can't disprove, certainly. In a fire station in San Francisco, anything you put on the side table in the upstairs living quarters gets thrown out a window when no one is looking. I've set up five different kinds of video cameras – incidentally, film works better than digital – seismographic equipment, dusted flour on the floorboards. Can't work out how it happens."

"Why don't they get rid of the side table?"

"Ever met a fire fighter? They're a superstitious lot, worse than baseball players. Prone to lucky underwear and keeping cats around. They'd never do it."

Isobel waved down a waiter, ordered fries and onion rings and hot dogs. "Any others?"

"I knew a haunted family."

Isobel waited. "Sounds… thrilling."

"Wherever they lived – and they did move around a lot – strange things happened in their home while they weren't in it. They were accused of faking it all, of course, but I certainly couldn't work out how they did it."

"How did they get rid of it?"

Mark sighed softly. "Can you smoke in here? All you clean living students, I can never be sure."

"You can."

He lit an unfiltered Camel and turned his beer glass slowly. "The family broke apart. On their own, nothing ever happens to them. A sad victory, perhaps, but they treasure the peace. I'm not one to judge."

The food arrived, and Isobel busied herself packing fries around the sausage.

"And you, dear?"

"Me what?" Isobel took an unreasonably large bite out of her hotdog, spilling sauce down her chin. "Not haunted," she laughed, though her gut twisted as she said it, thinking of all the girls she'd been, all the ties she'd cut. "May I?"

Charles flicked his cigarette pack toward Isobel and she lit one, relishing the smoke swelling in her lungs.

"Well, you must be into some sort of woo-woo, to have been dumped with me. I'm no one's favorite person."

"To be fair, neither am I. But. Yes. Vampires."

Charles laughed softly. "Tell me, dear, do you believe in them?"

_Tell me again about the vampires, John. Are they real? Do you promise they're real?_

"Only children do," she said, and the night rolled on.

* * *

Charles quickly became an obsession. He would only be at Duke for six months and Isobel had to soak up all of him in that time, all of his wonderful letters and photographs and film footage. Isobel made love to Alaric, waited until he was asleep, and returned to her desk, most nights.

Letters from desperate families, complaining of ghosts and wolves that only howled on full moon nights. Case files that disproved at least seven out of ten of them. Theories on the remaining thirty percent.

"Babe?"

Isobel turned, a guilty look on her face. "Sorry. I'll come back to bed in a minute."

He never woke up properly anyway, and Isobel rarely returned to bed before the sun came up.

* * *

At dinner one night Isobel finally broached the subject.

"I think I'm gonna switch to parapsychology," she admitted, turning spaghetti on her fork. It was a bright, cheerful, off-campus café they both favored for the garlic bread that dripped with butter.

Alaric put his fork down. "Can you even do that?"

"I have enough psychology credits. And I found a supervisor. And Chuck will supervise me, too, I'm sure of it. An external supervisor is encouraged, really."

Alaric took a long sip of wine. "I know I vowed not to laugh at your strange enthusiasms, Is… But…" He sighed. "You'll lose three semesters. Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Don't have to lose them all." She outlined her plan, and Alaric held her eyes, incredulous. "So, you see, I can use a lot of my existing research. You know?"

Alaric had an uncanny ability to hold a person's eyes for a long time, without laughing, or finding he needed to say something; without even breaking for a kiss, when he was thinking hard. Finally he took her hand. "Whatever you decide, I'll support you in it. Just… be sure, okay? Our student loans are huge, and we'll want to start a family in a couple of years."

Isobel's heart dropped a foot, into her stomach, competing for space with the spaghetti.

"Of course," she said. Shaking her head. "Don't worry about that."

* * *

Before Chuck left, he took Isobel out for dinner.

"I have a present for you," he said.

Isobel grinned. "Is it proof of something marvelous?"

"No. It's deranged crap, actually. I've been thinking about giving it to you for a while, but until you actually switched disciplines, I wasn't sure whether I should."

From a large rucksack, he pulled a concertina file.

"All original. I have all the documents scanned, but this is stuff I will never, never investigate. I hope to goodness you're too smart to take it seriously, my dear, but it should afford you some amusement, at least." His eyes twinkled. "I give you – the V-files."

Isobel quirked a lip.

"It's a play on X-files. Vampires. This is all the letters and reports I've ever had about vampires."

_Tell me again about the vampires, John. Are they real? Do you promise they're real?_

Isobel's smile fell. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly. And as a gesture of my very great affection for you, dear, this, as well." He pulled a jewelry box from his pocket and handed it over. Isobel opened it. Inside was a chunky locket on a long pendent; old, she suspected.

"I have heard over the years that the herb verbena – also known as vervain – protects against vampire compulsion. Rubbish, of course, as you can't be compelled by something that doesn't exist. Nevertheless. It's a pretty thing, and it amuses me to think of you wearing it."

Isobel hung it around her neck, struggling with the clasp. It was pretty.

"I love it. And every time a vampire fails to make me do what he wants me to do, I'll think of you," she promised.

Under her chair, the V-files seemed to radiate warmth, until the night was over and she hugged Professor Taylor goodbye for the last time.

Four weeks later, back home, Professor Charles Taylor was killed by a wild animal on the way out of his office late one evening. The cause of death was exsanguination. Coincidentally or not, his office was ransacked on the same night.

Isobel didn't make it to the funeral, but she and Alaric toasted him the night of, and Isobel cried herself to sleep.

* * *

It was a while before Isobel could really get stuck into the V-files. Alaric, Ben, and a bunch of the other guys went to Boston for a friend's bachelor party one weekend and Isobel bought a couple of bottles of wine and spent the whole weekend going through the file, document by document.

Once she had made a start, she was glad she had waited. Reading bits and pieces at a time could never have been so satisfying.

Isobel started by sorting the reports into states. Unsurprisingly, the reports were concentrated around the Carolinas, the Virginias, Georgia, Alabama, and down into Florida; Isobel supposed that elsewhere in the country, people would contact other experts – though there were reports from as far away as Oregon, North Dakota, and Texas.

In an on-campus stationary and book store, Isobel bought a map of the South-Eastern states and another of the whole of the United States. She bought push pins and a large corkboard, difficult to drag up the stairs. She put a map on each side.

On the map of the South-Eastern states, Isobel stuck a bright blue push pin close to the origin of each of the letters.

They went back twenty years, the letters. Some had clearly been inherited from Chuck's academic advisor, but his (or her) name had been effectively excised from the headers with a sharp blade.

The reports got thicker the closer they were to Isobel's home town, and for that matter, to Mystic Falls.

Everything from outside of the South-East went back into the file.

It was like sitting down to open gifts at Christmas – one part of Isobel wanted to speed read through them all, and another want to sit carefully, annotate everything. She sat well away from the papers for a while, breathing and breathing.

Finally she piled them carefully in order and walked to the nearest Kinko's, only a few blocks away, to photocopy them all. Two copies of each. One she would use to read and annotate, and the other she would put somewhere safe. The idea of needing a safe place for her vampire notes was too funny for words, but Isobel felt a little queasy, putting it all together; John Gilbert and his promise that vampires were real, Chuck's accident, the fact that vampire reports out of Mystic Falls were entirely common. Werewolves, too, though she was uninterested in these.

Isobel bought a packet of cigarettes, on impulse, as well as a packet of Oreos, a six-pack of diet Jolt and a bottle of vodka.

It was four o'clock on Sunday morning and Isobel's head was torn in half. Stimulated by the caffeine and the nicotine, a little drunk. In need of a decent meal. The Oreos were untouched.

Isobel searched through drawers until she found an old address book. Pink, with a pretty girl on the cover; and then thoroughly gothed-up by Isobel's fifteen year-old self. Colored with a sharpie, the pretty girl's face marred by black lipstick and heavy eye makeup. Would John's phone number have been listed under John, or Gilbert?

Both. And inside the front cover, and inside the back cover. There was no way he still lived there. She dialed the number anyway.

A 'disconnected' message.

A couple of hours on the Internet didn't reveal John's own phone number but it did reveal that he was working at a management consultancy in Philadelphia. Isobel took down the number, in the same pink address book, dragged herself to bed, and fell asleep almost instantly.

In the morning, she barely had time to drag the cork board to her office across campus before Alaric came home. She also took the original V-files folder, and one set of photocopies, keeping the other one to keep making notes on. Cleaned up the house and opened a bottle of wine just as Alaric and Ben stumbled through the door, laughing at their mutual genius.

"Have fun?" Isobel giggled. She poured three glasses and pretended her skin wasn't trying to vibrate right off her frame.

Ben and Alaric snickered. "Not bad." Ben's eyes, it should be said, were still a little dilated, and Isobel didn't really want to know what sorts of chemicals they'd all ingested. She really didn't.

"I'm starting to see the appeal of boobs," Ben said. Isobel and Alaric laughed.

"Really?" Isobel didn't really believe it. Ben had never shown a scrap of interest in boobs before. She couldn't imagine he was going to start now. Ben was all about dick. Well. He was all about Alaric, but failing that…

Admittedly, Isobel still felt a little sorry for Ben.

"Well… no. But the tassels were sort of interesting." More laughter.

An easy early evening and a simple shared meal.

"Isobel's researching vampires," Alaric told Ben, and Isobel hated the flip tone he used. "Did you know that?"

She smiled, bright and false and silly, flippant to match. "Not just vampires. Werewolves, too. But I'm not that interested in them."

Ben laughed. "No?"

"I like my men hairy, but not that hairy," Isobel said, wrinkling her nose. "And besides, who wants to deal with that much poop?"

_Tell me again about the vampires, John. Are they real? Do you promise they're real?_

* * *

Monday morning, Isobel dialed the number of the management consultancy firm John was working for.

"Gilbert."

His voice hadn't changed, much, from the voice of an eighteen-year-old boy. A little tired, perhaps, less heady. The optimistic lilt in his tone was long gone.

"John. It's Isobel."

There was the unmistakable sound of someone putting their hand over the phone; a muffled "Tell my ten o'clock I'll be ready in a few" and then a door shutting. When he came back, John muttered low and furious.

"Why would you call me, Isobel? Why here? Why anywhere?"

It came out in a tumble. "How is she? Do you see her much?"

Isobel hadn't planned to ask about Elena at all. It tumbled out. Isobel had been dreaming, vaguely, about her daughter, for years. Would she have John's blond hair and blue eyes, or be dark, like Isobel?

There was a long silence. "She's the most beautiful thing you can imagine," John said. "I could… I can send you a picture," he suggested, and for a moment, Isobel could hear the real John Gilbert in his voice. Tears welled in Isobel's eyes.

"No," she said. "It's okay."

There was no mistaking the disgusted sound in John's voice. "Then why are you calling?"

"I just wanted you to know… I worked it out, John. I know. You were telling the truth."

"About us?" Again, the optimism. For a vicious half-second, Isobel felt a stab of pity. She wanted to laugh at John until he hung up the phone.

"About the vampires, John."

John's chair squeaked. "I made that story up to impress you. It's not true."

Isobel said nothing.

"How have you been?" He waited for an answer. "Want to hear about how much fun it is watching someone else raise your daughter? _Our_ daughter?"

Nothing, again nothing. She waited. A technique learned from Alaric and call-me-Jenny.

"Don't do anything stupid, Isobel."

His voice sounded frightened. So there it was. "You admit it."

"No, I… Isobel, can we meet? Where are you? I can fly out tomorrow. Wherever you are."

"I don't think my husband would like that." She chuckled softly. "Goodbye, John," and then she just hung up.

* * *

Isobel hit the chat rooms. She used three different names. Izzy was a sixteen year old girl who claimed to have been bitten by a vampire once and was determined it would happen again. She used a lot of emoticons and 'hearted' Spike and Angel a lot. DoomedTemptress (it hurt even registering that name) was a twenty-something goth who believed with her whole heart, and wanted to be turned. AcaVamp was essentially Isobel, sensible academic type looking for serious leads.

It was a dangerous game, too much like the costumes of Isobel's former life; she found herself imagining what each person would wear, how they would walk. Fought hard for control. With Alaric, she was just Isobel, but while he slept, the other girls came to life.

Each persona got a different sort of interest.

Izzy mostly got hit on by pedophiles wanting to chat dirty with her. A couple asked her to meet. These, she told she was forwarding their profile information to the FBI.

DoomedTemptress got the same, but no telling who was trying to court her. When she made it clear she was looking for real vampires, the kindest recommended therapy.

AcaVamp got invited into a private chat one night by someone calling himself Bug1974. He asked if she was the one making noises on the Duke campus and Isobel's heart skipped a beat. He arranged to meet her at a local bar one night. Said he'd be wearing a cardigan and described himself as stubbly.

...

Isobel ordered herself a gin and tonic and took a seat by the bar.

"You're playing a dangerous game," said a nervous voice, sitting alongside her. "You talk like you know too much. You know vampires kill, right?"

Isobel swallowed, hard. He was handsome enough, but nervous looking. Looked like a computer science major. Graduate student, probably. Maybe a future as a librarian; he had that calculating air about him.

"Are you a student here?"

"USC," he said, eyes darting about. "Wasn't going to have you come to me, though. Look at me," he said, and Isobel looked. "Leave this alone."

His eyes were spooky, intense, but Isobel shook her head. "No. I've come way too far. What can you tell me?"

Slater gripped her chin, hard. Looked her in the eyes. "I can tell you to Leave. It. Alone."

He shaped the words very carefully, and deliberately, and Isobel would have sworn his pupils flared larger and blacker a moment. Trick of the light, of course. Impossible to do that voluntarily.

She pulled away. "No. What's your name?"

He looked confused, and irritated. "Bug."

"What's your name, Bug?"

He sighed. "Slater."

"Slater." Isobel held out her hand. "Isobel Flemming."

Reluctantly, Slater shook her hand. He eyed her necklace and shook his head, too. "What will it take to get you to leave this alone?"

Isobel ordered another round of drinks. "I just need to know, for sure. That they're real."

"Fine." Slater downed his drink, ordered another. "Another bourbon. A double. Good double."

The new drink was suspiciously full.

"They're real, and they're very dangerous."

Isobel wondered if Slater had vampire troubles of his own; he just looked like a geeky academic type, but his eyes were a little haunted, and he looked uncomfortable in the busy bar.

"I want to meet one. See for myself."

Slater put his head in his hands. "Suicidal streak. I love that in a woman."

"Can you help me? Or will I start using your name to get through doors?"

At that, Slater looked alarmed. He pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote on the back of a drink coaster. "You want to meet a vampire? This one will talk to you. He's old. Fantastically old. He's tired, too, so he won't talk for long. But he'll talk. It'll cost you, though. He gets by on donations." Slater passed the coaster back. The address was in Knoxville.

"I don't have a lot of money…"

Slater sneered. "He doesn't need money, girl. He'll want blood. So eat plenty of protein, and you stop on the way home from his place and eat something with some sugar in it." He stood up.

"He won't kill me, though?"

Slater shook his head in disbelief. "I'm surprised that you care. Seriously, I am. Seems to me you're taking your life in your hands every day you pursue this." He climbed off the bar stool and threw back the last of his drink. Settled his hands nervously in the pockets of his jeans. "If you keep going on this path you _are_ gonna end up dead. Or turned. And everyone you care about will end up dead too. You hearin' me?"

Isobel nodded dumbly, looking at the coaster in her hand.

"Isobel?"

Isobel looked up.

"Stay out of the chat rooms," he said. "You're too easy to trace."

"Thanks for caring," she deadpanned, and Slater took his leave.

* * *

When Isobel got home, Alaric was in bed. She stripped down to nothing, and crawled in beside him.

Alaric was so warm and pliant when he was asleep. Isobel kissed her way down his chest, stirring him, and then really waking him, licking and sucking him erect until he was heavy on her tongue. Alaric let out a groan of pleasure as Isobel straddled him, lowering herself onto his erection, lifting herself off again, nearly all the way. Clenching silken muscles tight around him, pulling him in further, and then almost all the way out again. Too good. The best tease. Alaric opened his eyes, but they were glazed with lust.

"Fuck, Isobel," he said, resting his hands on her hips.

"That's what I'm doing," she argued, at a whisper, letting him begin to dictate their rhythm as he woke up the rest of the way.

She lowered herself to kiss Alaric's mouth, and he flipped them so she was under him, rocking in and out of her so beautifully, brushing past her clitoris on every pass, kissing and nipping at her throat. Too sleepy to last long, he came with a gorgeous moan, Isobel following moments behind.

Isobel snuggled into Alaric's body, as he ran gentle fingers over her stomach and breasts.

"That was a nice surprise," he said, directly to the corner of Isobel's lips. "Wake me like that any time." Isobel turned, curved against him.

"I love you," she said, and meant it with everything she had.

She was nearly asleep when Alaric spoke again. "Are we alright?" he whispered.

"We're perfect," Isobel insisted, giggling. "Now shut up and go to sleep."

* * *

Isobel was scheduling a meeting, flicking through the pages of her day planner, when she realized her period was almost two weeks overdue.

No matter which way she calculated it, that damned little dot was on a Monday two weeks prior. Isobel was clockwork, always had been, with the exception of a nine-month interruption straddling the ages of fifteen and sixteen. A visit to the women's clinic confirmed what Isobel knew; she was, once again, pregnant.

She was not, however, pregnant and fifteen. Nor pregnant and in denial. She was pregnant and an adult with control over her own life. She slipped her wedding ring into her pocket and arranged for an appointment to take the first of two doses of RU 486.

She never told Alaric.

* * *

Every night, almost, Isobel sat up and worked, while Alaric slept. He woke, sometimes, and depending on his mood, he'd coax her to bed, bark that the light from the computer was keeping him awake, or try to reason with her.

One night, he tried to reason with her when she was making progress, and excited. "Just a few more minutes," she promised.

"Can't you, uh… Can't you finish this in the morning?" Alaric rubbed his eyes.

"But I like working at night." She tossed a playful look over her shoulder. Things were going too well to get into a fight.

Alaric sat up. "Yeah. See, I like sleeping at night. With you." Isobel barely heard. "Ok, I'll bite. What is it, thesis stuff? Look, baby, I'm in a three-way here with you and your computer. The least you can do is let me know what you're up to."

He'd never believe it; but on the off chance, Isobel decided to shoot for honesty. Reveal the direction her research had been going the last couple of months. "I was doing research, and I dug up all this stuff. About this small town in Virginia near where I grew up." She did not add, _where my daughter is growing up_. "It's isolated, out of the way. And every now and then, people die mysteriously. And they say that it's animal attacks. Except, these bodies are drained of blood."

Alaric cocked an incredulous eyebrow.

Isobel sighed. "It's vampires. It has to be."

"Ok. I'll get my garlic and holy water. And then maybe, just maybe..."

Isobel crossed to the bed, sat at Alaric's side. Frustrated. "No…"

"…we can get some sleep. Come here." He reached for her, to pull her down.

"No." She resisted, but playfully; nothing could spoil her mood. A new approach just that night had struck gold. Decades of newspaper reports. All of them pointing to the same conclusion: vampires.

Alaric laughed, tired. "Look, this is why I love you. Because you believe in all of this stuff. So much so that you're making a degree out of it. You're like Mulder, except hotter and a girl." He grinned that grin, and Isobel decided it was time to go to bed.

"This is not a joke, Ric. You think that this is cute. But I'm gonna prove it." She leaned to kiss him. "And Mulder was right in the end."

* * *

It was like a rabbit hole, like Oz and Wonderland and Narnia wrapped up in the Brothers Grim. The deeper Isobel went, the more complicated things got.

Isobel began to think she was imagining things, attributing too much to some tales, ignoring others. An Aztec tale which attributed the long-running animosity between werewolves and vampires to the 'Curse of the Sun and the Moon,' she treasured in particular, because it wove within itself the tale of the Petrova doppelgänger.

Isobel half-convinced herself that the famous Katerina Petrova, known in the nineteenth century as Katherine Pierce, was her own Bulgarian ancestor. Dreamed it was true, prayed it was true. Half-convinced herself that just as Katerina was rumored to have been the original Petrova doppelgänger, Isobel herself was Katerina's doppelgänger.

When she stumbled across a photograph of Katerina – who was, by then, Katherine – in a fashionable hat, and with a twinkle in her eye, Isobel cried. There was no trace of Isobel on Katherine's face. Katherine was beautiful, though. Impossible to say what color her eyes and hair were, in a tintype photograph, but they were dark, certainly. She had a set to her mouth which suggested she had a cunning, wicked mind, and an appetite for pleasure.

Isobel traced the contours of Katerina's face with her index finger, and then tucked the photograph away. When this was done, Isobel dried her eyes and reminded herself that there was no reason to think that any part of any of this was real. Though clearly vampires existed, there was nothing to suggest werewolves did; surely John would have known? Or they did, once, maybe, and had been hunted to extinction. Powerful and deadly only one night a month, surely the vampires would have had ample opportunity to eliminate them.

So even if there was a 'Curse of the Sun and the Moon' it might not mean anything. Not anymore.

And of course, the doppelgänger may have been nothing more than a pervasive rumor; these tales got stranger over time. There was no reference to the doppelgänger before Katerina, nor any since. The story went that she was necessary to breaking the curse, but not why. Perhaps she was a witch. Vampires, werewolves, why not witches? There were references to witches everywhere, but an old woman who sold herbs to steep for a medicinal tea could be called a witch, in credulous times.

The only thing Isobel was sure of was the existence of vampires. The rest she would set aside; witches and werewolves and doppelgängers could wait.

_Tell me again about the vampires, John._

Flipping through all the facts in her mind, at home on the sofa, Isobel felt a shiver. Delight or fear, she wasn't sure. She rolled her neck on her shoulders, picturing fangs on her throat; and tried not to hate Alaric when he entered the flat, and broke her reverie. She smiled brightly, instead, and helped chop vegetables for a curry.

But it was just so mundane.

* * *

"I told you weeks ago. I have an interview with this guy. If I don't get there this weekend, I may not get a second chance."

Isobel was irritated. Hormonal, after her second treatment. Alaric gave in, quickly, as he had, lately. Nodded.

"I told you, Is, it's fine. Call me."

Isobel struggled not to roll her eyes. She threw an overnight bag in the back of the car, and tried not to look at Alaric. She did, however, wave as she pulled away.

With two breaks, it took Isobel nearly eight hours to get to Knoxville. Long distance driving had never bothered Isobel. She reached up from time to time and touched the necklace around her neck.

Realization hit her like a freight train, and she had to pull over. "Son of a bitch," she whispered. Slater was a goddamn vampire. He'd tried to compel her to leave it alone. That was why he had agreed to meet her. She threw her head back and laughed. "Son of a bitch," she said again.

When she arrived at the address in Knoxville, she was surprised. It was an apartment block, not a particularly nice one. There was a security buzzer but the door was slightly ajar, so she went upstairs.

She knocked on the door.

After a long time, it opened. The boy on the other side was only a little taller than Isobel, and wore an exquisitely beautiful tailored suit. The apartment was neat and orderly. Isobel glanced again at the coaster.

"I'm looking for Henri," she said. "Do I have the right address?"

The boy nodded, slowly and deliberately. "I am Henri," he said, in strangely neat, forced English.

Isobel stammered. "I was looking for someone older, I think," she said.

"I'm older than I look." He was calm, collected. Each syllable distinct. His skin was immaculate, so pale it was almost transparent, and the bow of his lip suggested a smile where there was none.

"I want to talk to you," she said, feeling foolish. Of course, he would look the age he had been when he turned. Had she been expecting someone who looked to be hundreds of years old?

She realized almost instantly that yes, in fact, she had been.

He looked no older than seventeen, maybe a little younger. He had very fine blond hair and pale green eyes with flecks that suggested a sickness, of some sort; a slightly rheumy look.

Henri took a step back, and Isobel stepped inside.

"I smell vervain," he said, irritated. "Very impolite."

Isobel flushed. "It's my necklace. I don't drink it."

"You know the price, then?"

After a pause, Isobel nodded. "I'm willing to pay it. After," she added.

"You'll pay it first." It wasn't a request. Isobel nodded. Henri indicated that she should sit.

"My name -"

"I don't care to hear it. Hold out your arm, please," he said, with barely a hint of expression on his face. Isobel did.

Henri brought Isobel's wrist to his nose, and inhaled; the way a sommelier tests the scent of a wine. As he did it, Isobel got her first flash of fear. Henri's pale, green eyes became a deep black-red. The capillaries beneath them flushed, rose to the surface. When his mouth dropped open a touch, the very tips of his fangs became apparent for a long moment. Isobel's heart started to race, and her breath became shallow. Her very first vampire, really, the first time seeing a vampire's real face.

Henri met her eyes, settled his features back to human.

"I have no interest in killing you," he said. "Or anyone. I've killed, I hope, all the humans I ever will. I get by on donations of blood – willing, for the most part – and I like the quiet life. I have no interest in policemen knocking on my door to ask about missing tenants."

"How much do you need?"

"A pint is the usual amount that you would donate, in the traditional way. That is adequate for my needs for a few days." Carefully, and surprisingly, Henri sterilized a patch of skin on the inside of Isobel's arm.

"You've done this before?" Carefully, he traced a finger over some of the worse scars on her arm, shivering in a way that was almost sensual as he did it.

"No, I… that was something else." Isobel felt oddly ashamed. "You're not going to bite me?"

"I wouldn't want you to have to explain such a mark to your husband."

For a moment, Isobel wished she had removed her wedding ring.

Henri tied an elastic strap hard just above Isobel's elbow. "Prepare," he said, and a moment later, he inserted a scalpel into her arm, quickly replacing it with a glass pipe, like something a chemist might once have used, distilling medicines.

It hurt, but not as much as Isobel imagined teeth would hurt; still, perversely, she wished Henri had bitten her.

The pipe fed into a tube which fed into a jar. It must have smelled good, because as Henri sat down, he gave a brief shiver, and opened his mouth again. This time, Isobel could see all of his teeth, and chilling as it was, it was also…

"Beautiful," she murmured. Henri kept his features those of a vampire, but he held her eyes.

"You don't resemble the children who usually seek my company."

"Children?"

"Adolescents, perhaps. The type who listen to dark musical styles and wear a lot of black clothing."

Isobel nodded. "You're not afraid they'll freak out and blow your cover?"

"They can't. They've been compelled not to," he said. "Just as you will be, before you leave."

The bottle was by now filled to the halfway mark. Henri moved to the kitchen, glided, almost, and took a jug of what looked like iced tea from it. "Made to my own recipe," he said. "Quite safe. You'll need a little sugar, afterwards."

Once the bottle was full to the mark, Henri slid the glass tube from Isobel's arm. Placed a cotton wad over the wound. "Hold this tight," he said. He placed a funnel into the top of the bottle and topped it off with a clear spirit. "Gin," he confirmed. "As is my preference. I think it is only fair to tell you, should you ever meet another vampire, it will not be like this. If you are very fortunate, you will be drained quickly and left in a rubbish bin or a dark alley."

Isobel held the cotton bud down, felt the wound begin to clot.

"And if I'm unlucky?"

"It will happen slowly, and will involve a brutal rape. I assume Slater sent you?" Isobel nodded. "He has an interest in staying under the radar as well. Doesn't kill, if he can help it. However, the majority of my kind… are not so discerning. You need only stay under the radar if you wish to stay in one place. Most do not have the temperament."

"Do you mind if I put a tape recorder on?"

"Yes," he said. "I mind. Pay close attention and remember what I say, since it means so much to you. What do you want?"

"I want to hear about what it's like," she said.

Henri poured glasses of iced tea and topped them off with rum. He sat elegantly on a velvet covered chaise, and began to speak. And that was when Isobel realized that after six hundred years, he was… lonely.

It was close to midnight when he paused.

"You don't seem so bad," she said.

"Perhaps I'm not. I have held on to my humanity, as much as these things are possible after some centuries."

"Most don't?"

Henri considered for a long moment. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"I'd love to join you," Isobel said, cautiously, and he offered a long, black, Russian cigarette, a brand Isobel didn't recognize. They smoked in silence.

"Everything is heightened, for a vampire; every touch, every smell. Every impulse. Your humanity is there, but it… prevents you from doing everything you want to do. You can switch that off. I'm told it is like a button one can press."

"You're told?" Isobel leaned to drop a long column of ash into the ashtray Henri was pushing across the table.

"I've never looked for it," he confessed. "I never wanted to be what I am. A local vampire took a shine to me. He turned me, and took me for his catamite. I belonged to him for nearly two hundred years, before I got a chance to kill him," he said. "He was especially brutal. I was young and beautiful and he simply took me, like he took everything else that appealed."

A long moment of silence seemed appropriate, though it had been hundreds of years since Henri had killed his maker.

"How do you become a vampire?"

Henri looked disappointed. "After everything I have told you – how can that be your wish? We are killers, monsters. Living in the shadows, always."

"I didn't say -"

But it was true, she realized; had been true since she was fifteen, and John Gilbert told her they were real.

Henri shook his head. "You die with vampire blood in your system. And no. I shall not give you any."

Isobel bowed her head. "I wasn't going to ask," she said, and meant it; if any trace of Henri's sadness remained in his blood, she didn't want it.

"I will not help you. Now remove your necklace."

Isobel hesitated.

"I am averse to _killing_ humans, but I will not hesitate to hurt you, if I must."

She took it off.

Isobel was halfway back to Durham before she realized that she was driving, that it was broad daylight, that she felt utterly refreshed, and that she was starving. She pulled over to a diner rest-stop and ordered pancakes, lashings of maple syrup and bacon. Coffee, orange juice.

The waitress was friendly, topping up Isobel's coffee. "You takin' a road trip, honey? Where y'all comin' from?"

Isobel couldn't remember. "I… Tennessee," she said, but she couldn't be more specific than that. Her head ached when she tried.

"Well, now. Take a good rest, and plenty of coffee, before y'all keep on keepin' on," the waitress said, smiling. "Enjoy yer pancakes."

Isobel removed her purse from her bag, and tucked in the same pocket was her necklace. She put it on, and drove the rest of the way back to Durham with a terrible weight in her heart.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter summary:**

Isobel is determined to become a vampire. She'll do whatever she has to, to make it happen. Damon Salvatore is exactly what she needs.

**Pairings**: Isobel/Alaric, Isobel/Damon.

**Warnings**: Explicit, consensual, rough sex.

* * *

Back home, on Isobel's return from Tennessee, Alaric was tense.

"So are you going to tell me who you interviewed?"

"A vampire expert," Isobel said. "I've said it fifty times."

Alaric sliced beef for the stir-fry. "I'm starting to hate this," he said. "A lot."

"Forgetting your vows already?"

Alaric let the knife clatter onto the board. "Enthusiasms and obsessions are not the same thing. You haven't even come to bed at the same time as me in months."

Isobel poured wine. "I'm making progress, babe," she said. "This isn't forever."

"So, kids when? When you finish? When you pass? You want a few years before… I mean, you still want kids? You said a dozen, I think. You said that. You did."

This is the normal stuff, she told herself. This is the stuff dreams are made of, but even as she thought it, she saw Henri's beautiful face, the capillaries beneath his eyes. His teeth.

"I don't know if I can," she admitted. Wasn't sure what she meant as she said it. Wasn't sure she could do normal, maybe.

"No one knows if they can have kids until they start tryin'." Alaric sliced capsicum into thin strips. Green beans. "Way of the world."

_I can have children_, she thought. _Want to see the one I made already? Apparently she's the prettiest thing ever_.

Isobel didn't say these things. Instead, she looked away completely.

Alaric stopped arguing, as he always did, and they shared a tense meal.

Tense days.

Tense _weeks_.

* * *

The problem was pain. Heart-deep pain and the promise of a button that could switch it off; no guilt, no ridiculous human concepts like love or loyalty that hold us back, just the hunt.

How it was possible to hold so much pain Isobel didn't know but it got worse, like a cancer, every day. She dreamed her eyes were black-red, her teeth sharp. She dreamed she switched everything off and went running amok through cities and countries and she drank from the necks of anyone who tickled her fancy and she left them piling up around her feet. She woke from these dreams with a smile on her face and tears streaking her face, and she cleared both away before Alaric could see her.

* * *

Isobel left a terse note one morning: 'Research trip. Explain later. Love you.' She packed her most drab clothes and flew to Philadelphia.

She paused at the airport to slip a persona over her features, and dress the part; black and grey. Makeup to make her look tired, exhausted. A little mascara rubbed onto the lower lid of both eyes to make it look as if she'd been crying. She inhaled some eucalyptus to make her eyes tear up, and took a taxi to John's office block. She called him from the corner of the street, sniffing.

"I have to see you," she begged, wrenching a sob from her throat.

John was silent. "I'll come to you. I'll fly. Anywhere. Where are you?"

"I'm in Philadelphia. I had to get away." She blew her nose, making sure he could hear it.

"Where are you staying?"

"Is there a bar or something? Near where you work?"

John gave her an address, and Isobel walked the six blocks. She refreshed her makeup – Jesus, she looked mentally ill and homeless – and found a corner booth. She ordered wine and waited for John to arrive. It took him less than an hour. Considering his job, it can't have been easy to get away. The first victory.

When their eyes met across the bar, Isobel reached out a hand, supplicant. Pathetic. By the time he had crossed the room to sit beside her Isobel was crying in earnest.

Method acting was best. Isobel had plenty of pain to draw from and the poured all of it out of her tear ducts. For long moments, she fooled even herself; John rubbed circles into her shoulders, genuinely affectionate. Touching, really; he smoothed her hair, made reassuring shushing noises.

"I'm losing my mind," Isobel said, and even that wasn't a lie.

"Talk to me, Is," he said, pressing kisses into her hair, her forehead, her temple.

"Vampires." Isobel sobbed again. "I'm obsessed. I…" she pulled away, tugged at John's tie, ran her fingers around his neck. "I have to know. I have to meet one. I just have to meet one. So I know, for sure."

John bought a bottle of wine, and held Isobel, there in that booth, until she wanted to claw his eyes out or vomit or both. "I've missed you," she promised. "Since… everything is so messed up, it's been messed up for years. I feel like I've made mistake after mistake… How's our daughter, John?" And then she kissed him, kissed him like she meant it.

John kissed her back.

"It's not too late. You can know her. Like I know her. She's… amazing, Is," he promised, and there was the boy again, promising to give up his life and look after Isobel and Elena forever.

"I don't want her to know me. Not like this." Isobel blew her nose again. Sipped at the wine. "John… I can't get past this. I need to meet one. I need to know one. Please. There has to be something you can do. What if…"

She felt nauseous.

"If I could get past this – maybe we could try again? Build something real?"

"What would you husband say about that?"

Isobel slumped into John's side. "He'd be relieved," she promised, and wasn't sure that was a lie either.

"Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?"

Oh, God. She was going to have to sleep with him. "I don't want to impose…"

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, and after dropping some money on the table, he led Isobel out into the street to catch a cab. One arm around her waist, holding her up like a broken china doll. It went with the rest of the costume, so Isobel slumped helplessly against him.

John had done well for himself. His apartment wasn't the penthouse, but it was large, and during the day, it would be light-filled and glorious. Maid service, obviously. The largest television Isobel had ever seen.

"I'll organize for some food to be delivered. Do you like Thai?"

"Not much of an appetite." Isobel smiled weakly, and John caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger.

"You need to eat, Is," he implored, and Isobel nodded. "I have to make some calls. You remember Zach?"

Isobel's eyes roamed the bookshelves. She wondered how many of the books John had ever read. American Psycho, almost certainly. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance? Doubtful. "Yeah."

"He has two… uncles. I guess. Who might be able to help."

"Vampires."

"Vampires. I'll call him, maybe a couple of other… You want to take a shower? Freshen up?"

Isobel smiled, nodded gratefully. "There are towels in the… Oh, God, Is," John said, wrapping his arms around her. "You have no idea how much… I've missed you. We can do this. We can fix this. Get your head straight and try again."

He wouldn't stop talking. Like a sixteen year old girl.

"I'll go," she said, and slipped into the bathroom before she could be tempted to kick his testicles into his throat.

She stood a long time under the shower. Ruining her carefully applied makeup, but perhaps it would be to her advantage if John thought he was being a white knight. Fixing Isobel.

Like there was an Isobel to fix.

By the time she emerged, in a fluffy white robe John no doubt kept in the cupboard for his menagerie of lady visitors – girlfriends, hookers, one night stands, whoever the were – the food had been delivered. Isobel poked listlessly at it, though she was hungry, and gladly responded to being prodded to eat. John poured white wine, and since Isobel suspected she was going to have to let him fuck her, she was glad for the fortification. The sweetness took the very edge off the spicy noodles.

"Tell me about your husband," he said, when they'd finished eating.

Isobel shook her head. Of all the betrayals she was perpetrating against Alaric, this wouldn't be one of them. "I don't want to think about him. Or talk about him."

John stopped to answer the phone twice, taking notes and muttering quietly. Excited, Isobel thought, though she tried not to react.

When the night was beginning to get late, and Isobel was a little tipsy, she yawned, exaggeratedly, and rubbed her eyes.

"I'm so tired," she said. "I feel like I haven't just slept in months."

John nodded.

"I can sleep on the couch," she suggested.

"No. You'll sleep with me." John looked so concerned, so sweet. "I want to keep an eye on you."

The thought made Isobel's skin crawl. "Will you just hold me? I just want to be held." Better than the alternative, and when she delivered the line with that look in her eyes, he wouldn't say no. This was an expression Isobel had practiced in the mirror, the one she used when she wanted to avoid a conversation with Alaric. Sad little angel, needing someone to take good care of her.

"I can do that," John said, and he did. Held Isobel close, kissed her mouth one more time, and let her sleep.

Such a relief.

* * *

When Isobel woke, John had a tray for her. Breakfast in bed. She sat up, smiling.

"What's this?" She yawned, stretched. Like a cat. Pulled herself to seated against the lush pillows.

"Breakfast. And… news." He held a piece of paper aloft. Isobel smiled, stretched. Reached for it.

John held it to ransom, and Isobel had to clutch his shirt in her fists, kiss him again, to get it. "You're amazing," she purred. "I can't believe you did it."

"Now eat." John kissed her forehead.

"Bathroom, first," she said, climbing down from the bed.

In the bathroom, she showered quickly, brushed her teeth. Dressed. Put on makeup, normal makeup, no more homeless schizophrenic. Tied her hair into a neat knot and the base of her skull.

John was smiling when Isobel left the bathroom, but it evaporated quickly. "Where are you going?"

"Home," she said brightly. "Thanks for this."

She folded the note, and tucked it in her bag.

John beat her to the door. "What are you talking about, Isobel? We have plans! We…"

Isobel set her features to pitying.

"You used me," John said, facing starting to fall.

"I used you." Isobel hitched her bag on her shoulder, and waited another moment.

"Why?"

"Oh, John…" Isobel cupped John's cheek, ran the hand further south; a finger over his chest, a tiny hand splayed over his hip. "Because it was so easy."

When she reached for the door handle, he didn't move. His expression never changed from utter betrayal. Isobel let the door click shut behind her, with no hesitation, and less regret.

On the notepaper, a name: _Damon Salvatore_, and a current – temporary – address in Raleigh, recently used to send documents for the Salvatore family trust. She had to work quickly.

* * *

"I'm only going to Raleigh for the weekend. What is the big deal?"

"If it's not a big deal, I can come with you." Alaric was pacing. Pissed. "I think it's time to let this vampire crap go. I mean, the research, the trips, it's become an obsession."

Isobel stood firm. "Well, this is important to me, Ric," she said, arms crossed over her chest.

"Why?" Alaric held his arms out, more expressive than usual. "Why is it so important? Explain it to me. I mean, make me understand. I mean, what's the point of this?" He ran his hands through his hair, shook his head in frustration. "You don't want kids. You're barely ever home. I just want us to be normal people."

"Maybe I don't want to. Maybe I want more."

She hitched her overnight bag on her shoulder, and left.

* * *

It was only a few hours later that Isobel knocked on the door of a penthouse apartment in Raleigh, and the door opened on one of the most beautiful men she had ever laid eyes on.

He had clear, aquiline features, lips meant for kissing. The palest blue eyes she had ever seen. Inky-black hair that looked like it would feel soft. He was dressed in slim cut trousers and a t-shirt just tight enough to show he was built like some sort of fucking god. He narrowed his eyes, looking Isobel up and down.

"Weird," he said. "I didn't order anything." His eyes settled not on her breasts or legs, though he took stock of both, but on her throat, and then back to her face.

"I'm…"

"Dinner? No. You're early for dinner. Lunch? Late lunch? Snack?"

"Are you… Damon Salvatore?"

"Are you… suicidal?" Damon leaned closer, and Isobel got the strong sense that he was smelling her.

"I…"

"Are you… suffering from some sort of brain injury?" Damon took her arm, yanked her inside. Shut the door behind her. "Who gave you this address?"

"I…"

"Oh, honey. Your death will go un-mourned," he said, and suddenly his fangs were out, his face had changed, and Isobel had about three seconds to fix it.

Into the costume box she went. A full persona. She could do nothing about her outfit, but she needed a different posture, different facial expression. Different attitude.

"Jesus. Grabby," she said, pulling away. "Got a surprise, that's all." Damon stood up a little straighter, intrigued. Isobel unbelted her jacket. Took a few steps into the room like it was hers. Draped the jacket over a chair. "Most of the vampires I've met have been… Unimpressive."

She mimicked Damon's early look at her, undressing him with her eyes.

"Hmm-mm," she said, like Damon was the meal. "You are something, aren't you?" Feigning boredom, she removed her gloves, placed them on top of the jacket. Crossed to the window. "Nice view. You're not burning up. Interesting." She said it like she couldn't be less interested.

"Who told you where to find me?" Damon crossed his arms.

"Henri. We had a nice chat," she said, sticking a hip out, cocking her chin. Smiling coquettishly. "I think he liked me."

"Henri likes anyone who will spend an hour or two listening to him talk about how much being a vampire sucks." Damon took a few steps closer. "But he has no way to know where I am and he values his life too much to piss me off. So I'll ask you again. Who told you where to find me?"

"I have… allies, in Mystic Falls."

"Honesty. Nice," Damon said. "I'm still going to eat you."

"You can snack, after we talk." She flashed a wide grin.

It was working. Damon looked interested enough not to eat her, at least not yet; no guarantees that would last, but it was something she could work with.

"What makes you think I'm going to talk to you?" Emphasis on 'you' – Isobel guessed the translation was 'impress me, bitch'.

"You will," Isobel said, and before she knew quite what she was doing, she began unbuttoning her shirt.

"Interesting," Damon said. "Do go on."

Isobel shrugged out of her shirt. "Do you like this?" She shaped her own breasts with her hands, running careful fingers over the pale pink lace and black ribbons of her bra. "Expensive, I'll grant you, but there's no price to be put on good quality lingerie."

"Is that right?" Damon could, no doubt, hear the speed of her heart beat. Still, his teeth were neatly tucked away, and if the tent in his pants was anything to go by, he was enjoying the show.

Isobel turned away; risky, she knew, but she felt safe, as long as she was being interesting.

"What's your name?" he asked. "Since you know mine, it seems rude not to share."

"Ava," she said, without missing a beat. She shimmied out of her skirt. "I'm undecided about the shoes. Leave them on? They go nicely with the underwear," she said, speculative.

"They'll help with the height difference when I fuck you into the wall."

"On, then." She turned, and took three steps towards him. "You want to unwrap the rest yourself?"

Damon closed the distance between them, one languid step at a time. "Are you _crazy_? I mean, legitimately mentally ill?"

Isobel shrugged. "Obviously. Just your type, right?"

"Hitting a few of my kinks, it's true." Isobel stood in place while Damon walked around her, drinking in the sights. To her shame – and equally, her relief – Isobel realized she was wet. Dripping wet. Damon took her left arm, heavily scarred. "And self-destructive. Hot," he said, like an afterthought.

She knew it was going to happen, but it still came as a shock, when Damon bit – hard – into her arm. She groaned, and tried to make it a moan. Let her eyes flutter shut.

Once she was used to the sensation, it was actually quite erotic.

Damon pulled away, after licking up the last of the rivulets of blood. The bite seemed to have been shallow.

"You walked in here and offered yourself up as a meal. You know I'm going to fuck you until you can't walk," he said, and not like it was a question.

"Promises, promises," she said airily. The girl she was just then; Ava, whore for vampires. "You didn't answer. Do you want to unwrap the rest yourself?"

Damon crooked a finger, beckoned Isobel to the bedroom. She sauntered after him.

He sat on the edge of an improbably large bed. "Take the rest off," he said. "Slowly," he added. "Get it right and you might actually walk out of here alive," he finished, feigning boredom. No part of Damon was bored. His eyes were blown black with lust, barely a ring of silver around the edge. His shirt was gone, revealing a perfect arrangement of rock–hard muscle, pale and cool. He had taken off his belt, and looked relieved when he was able to free his erection at last. Isobel made no attempt to hide the fact that she was staring at it; she smiled, slyly.

"That for me?" she asked.

"Hope you like it. You're going to have it in every orifice before the afternoon is out." He began to stroke, gently. "Get on with it."

The obvious thing was to take her bra off, first, which was exactly why she didn't do it; started with her panties, instead, rubbing at them first until they were quite wet. She moved one leg down a little, and then the other. Turned around as she bent over, shimmying them down her hips.

"Step back," Damon said. She stepped backwards until she was closer than arm's reach, and Damon reached. Two fingers in her pussy and a well-practiced thumb in Isobel's ass. More turned on than she wanted to admit, despite the sudden stab of pain, Isobel rocked her hips back into Damon's hand, and then stepped away. Stepped out of her panties. Shocked even herself by turning and stuffing them in Damon's mouth.

He cocked an eyebrow, removing them. "You're a little fucked up, Ava," he said. "I think I like you."

"Yeah? What do you want to do to me?"

"Everything I can think of, and anything you can. What's that necklace?"

"What do you think?" She smiled, running one finger over the tip of his cock. Christ, but he was hard. Maybe as big as Alaric, too, she thought.

She set Alaric's face aside in her mind. Couldn't think about him, wouldn't. This was separate.

"Take it off." He cocked his chin. "Now."

"You don't need to use compulsion on me," she promised. "There's nothing you could do to me that I wouldn't beg you to do."

"Is that right." Damon slipped his pants off, let them sliver to the floor. "You have some practice, begging? It's harder than you think. A lot of people carry around a sort of quiet dignity that rears its head up at the exact wrong moment. It's sort of a turn-off when someone starts blushing and begs _not_ to have to beg. You know?"

Ava had no such quiet dignity. Ava was a slut, a dripping whore. She loved to beg. The very thought of begging was making Ava even wetter.

Isobel pushed Damon down onto the bed. "Dignity's for losers," she whispered, and bit Damon's ear. Hard. "Now may I please suck your gorgeous cock?"

"No," he said. Petulant. "You may not."

Isobel licked a wet trail down Damon's chest. "Please?" she asked, breathing in and out of his pubic hair, kneeling on the ground. She let tears spring to her eyes. "Please, Damon, please. I just want… I need a mouthful of cock." She mouthed her way up the underside, let her teeth scrape just hard enough so Damon's hips started to roll. She didn't wait for permission; took him in one mouthful, opening her throat as wide as she could, taking in all of him and more, tamping down the panic she began to feel as her air supply was threatened, as Damon fisted a hand in her hair.

"Fuck, yeah," he said, beginning to thrust. Every time he pulled away Isobel gasped for some air, but she didn't have much chance to. Tears sprang fresh from her eyes as Damon controlled her head, faster and faster, until he came without warning in her mouth. She swallowed quickly, relishing the chance to breathe. With a triumphant look in her eyes, she rolled back onto her feet, tossed her hair back.

"Are you crying?"

"No dignity," Isobel promised.

"That is awesome. Get on the bed. On your hands and knees. Forget the shoes. We can play with them later."

Isobel obeyed, crawling up onto the bed like a cat. It was a shock when Damon ran his fingers over the wet folds, spread out for him, and more of a shock when he followed it with his mouth; she gasped, a little.

"You're loving this," he marveled. "Good girl. Your life expectancy is getting better by the second. Spread your legs wider. And brace yourself." Isobel did, and then moaned, when with one swift movement he was buried in her completely.

He moved slowly, for a moment, but before she knew it, he was fucking her hard; incredibly hard, ferocious. She breathed harder, reminding herself, _convincing_ herself, on every thrust, that the pleasure was at least equal to the pain. She called over her shoulder. "Fuck me like I'm another vampire, Damon. Like I can't be hurt. Harder. _Harder_."

Damon obliged, hands gripping her hips so hard the pain there kept her focused. She braced harder, against the bed head, and shrieked when he slapped her ass, suddenly, and then a second time, a third.

He just kept going; changing the angle, from time to time, moaning when she clenched her muscles down hard, pulling her hair when her head got too close to the pillow. Isobel let herself drift away, a little; asked herself how long the bruises would last, how she could keep Alaric from seeing them. She left Ava on the bed, still screaming for more.

Suddenly she was on her back, with her legs over Damon's shoulders. She reached over her head to brace herself again, Damon driving into her, hitting some secret spot over and over like a jackhammer, until suddenly she was coming, hard, her most intimate muscles fluttering like something alive and quite separate from her. She bit her lip, and tasted blood.

Damon's rhythm changed, suddenly, became a slower roll; he shifted her legs off his shoulders until she wrapped them around his hips, instead, and leaned so close to her face she thought he would kiss her, at last. Isobel saw that his face had changed, and as he came, he bit hard into the soft flesh of her shoulder.

Isobel was only just sensible enough to realize that pulling away would make it worse, so she moaned again, instead, told herself it felt wonderful.

And then she realized it did.

Dear fucking god it felt wonderful. The blood rushing through her veins, all in the same direction, towards that hot, needy mouth.

"Fuck, Damon," she breathed, and he flickered those dangerous eyes to hers. "Don't kill me, gorgeous. You're not done with me, are you?"

He dislodged his mouth, but his features remained monstrous. "Not yet. Give me a few minutes and we're going again. Not out of orifices yet."

"You gonna fuck me in the ass?"

"You know I am." He settled onto his side. "Take your bra off," he said. Isobel sat up, ignoring the aching between her legs, the sharp pain from the bites in her arm and shoulder. Unhooked the strap from behind, and then dropped one strap, the other. Slipped it off completely.

Damon cupped one breast in his palm. Caught the nipple in the crook of his thumb, and weighed the breast in his hand. "Nice," he said. "Very nice."

Isobel shifted her weight, straddled his body as he lay on his back on the mattress. Amused to learn that vampires could sweat, when so inspired. She spread wet heat an inch below Damon's belly button. Rubbed a finger between his lips.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I came?"

"I know why you came. Sexual services and a meal. I'll have to send my regards to your pimp. Does he owe me a favor?" Damon took Isobel's finger into his mouth, sucking it, even as she pulled it away again.

Isobel shuffled back, took Damon's cock in hand, began to tease it back to life. "Not only that," she said. Already bruised, inside and out.

"I hope you didn't come for the sparkling conversation. Because as soon as I'm done with you, I'm throwing you out, dead or alive. And without your clothes."

Isobel laughed. "Boring."

"Is that so? Impress me, then. Why would I leave you alive? Hands and knees again, good girl," he said. "The amount of lubricant I use will be in direct proportion to how interesting you are."

Isobel felt herself shake, a little, but Ava only laughed. "Then I promise I'll be interesting." Smiling, she climbed off Damon's body and knelt again, ass in the air. "Lick it first."

Damon obliged, chuckling, and Isobel tried to let herself relax. Maybe Ava was used to getting fucked in the ass but Isobel wasn't. With no warning, Damon shifted his mouth, bit into the flesh of her left cheek.

Isobel shrieked. Damon laughed. "Crying yet?" He licked away the blood.

Isobel felt two well-slicked fingers breach her anus at once, and she pushed back hard against the pressure, tried to relax further.

"You're not very interesting so far," Damon mused, rocking his hand in and out. "I'm betting you'd like me to take my time, here."

"I want you to turn me," Isobel said, and Damon rewarded her with a third finger.

"I like you about enough for a spot of afternoon delight, Ava," he said. "Not enough to risk running into you at society events for all eternity. Christ, you're tight. You have done this before?"

"Not much," Isobel confessed. "I…"

"Get more interesting. I'd start with the begging."

"You talk too much, Salvatore. Just fuck me, if you're going to fuck me," Isobel said – Ava said – and tried to ignore the distinct sensation of a tear as Damon took her with one deep, hard thrust.

The tears that poured came from Isobel's eyes, and Ava smiled through them, but every last one was for Alaric.

It was some time later, when the tears had finally stopped, and Isobel was weak and shaky from blood loss. She had bite marks on the insides of both thighs, on her right breast, at her jaw. Up and down both arms. She covered her eyes with her arm and tried to ignore the blood and semen leaking out of her anus.

Damon looked hale and whole, picture perfect, when she moved her arm.

"Stand up," he said.

Isobel climbed shakily to her feet, and Damon did too. He took her hand and lead her to the wardrobe, opening the door to reveal a full-length mirror. Stood behind her, settling his hands on her hips.

"This is what you're asking for," he said, directly into her hair, up against her ear. "Look at yourself. Can you do this to another human being?"

He stretched her arm out, to show her the bites in the soft flesh there.

"I know what I'm asking," she said, all the time, thinking, _I'm sorry, Ric, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry_. She couldn't go home. Not looking like this.

Damon turned her head, tipped her chin. Kissed her gently. It was the first time he'd done so. So close to a real kiss, so tender. "You're an interesting woman, Ava," he said, and did it again, deepening the kiss quickly, and then stepping back a notch.

His face changed, again, and Isobel braced herself for another bite. Instead he bit into his own wrist, and held it up, an offering.

"Will this… will I change, now?"

"Not unless I kill you."

Damon's eyes softened, and he held Isobel's eyes as she drank.

Fireworks, she thought. Fireworks going off in her brain. She held the arm with both hands, drank greedily, until Damon pulled it away. The wound closed instantly.

"Come on," he said, and led her to the bathroom. "It's okay. We're just going to get you cleaned up," he promised, and ran the water piping hot. While Isobel pressed her forehead to the cool tile, feeling Damon's blood light up every cell in her body like the best imaginable drug, Damon shampooed and conditioned her hair. He turned her around, then, knelt to wash her legs, to land gentle kisses in places where before he had put only teeth, and Isobel twitched, running her hand through his hair.

Damon stood again, to wash her breasts, her arms, and that's when Isobel noticed at last that nothing hurt, anymore; no bruises, no bites. She put her arms around Damon's neck, pulled his face down to meet hers in another kiss, and he laughed, softly.

"Go on," he told her neck. "There are some dresses in the wardrobe. Make yourself pretty. We're going out."

* * *

Isobel sat, composed, on the white leather sofa in the main living area, in a red dress that fit her almost perfectly; shaking a little, still, but not as badly as she had been, and with the pain gone, and the blood still doing interesting things to her vision she was relaxed; and if not happy, then something like it.

Damon didn't say a word; opened the door, and indicated that she should follow him out.

"Where are we going?"

"Dinner," he said. "Don't worry. I was thinking seafood."

"I wasn't worried," Isobel said.

Dinner was pleasant; the waiter was young and handsome and attentive, recommending wines to go with each course. He was intelligent, a college student, probably, bearing more than a passing resemblance to Ben.

He brought the bill, and Isobel put a credit card down.

Damon caught the waiter's eye. "We've already paid," he said, and Isobel watched as the waiter's eyes went wide and blank.

"You've already paid," he confirmed.

"But here's a tip," Damon finished, putting a hundred dollar bill into the man's hand. "It's a good tip, right?"

"It's a good tip," the man said, swaying a little.

"So, meet us out in the alley in about five minutes. Okay?"

"Five minutes," he agreed, and then shook his head, looking a little amused, and a little concerned. "I hope to see you both again."

"You will," Damon said. "Soon."

Damon led Isobel around the back of the restaurant, near the industrial sized garbage bins.

"What are we doing?"

"I'm educating you," Damon said. A moment later, the waiter came out. "Come here. Stand still. This is going to hurt more than anything you've ever felt before, but you're going to be very, very quiet. Okay?"

The waiter murmured an acknowledgement.

Damon let his real face slip over his human features. "Nice guy? Good knowledge of the menu, I thought, and he knows his wines," he said. "His employer will miss him. Probably has friends, maybe a nice girlfriend. Nice boyfriend. Whatever. Bright future ahead of him. Would you agree?"

Isobel nodded. "Yes," she said, and without a second's warning, Damon tore into the waiter's throat. Bit and sucked and kept sucking until the man's eyes glazed over, and the life left his body, and Damon dropped him to the ground.

"He's human. So he means less than nothing to me. Is that what you want to be, Ava? You want to be a monster like me?"

Isobel began to shake, but held her ground.

"Tell me. Is this what you want?"

"Yes," she said, "yes."

She took a step closer to Damon, enjoying the look of confusion in his eyes. "God," she said, settling her hands on his hips. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone so lonely in all my life."

She pushed the splayed arm of the corpse away with her foot, and stretched to kiss Damon's mouth. His lips closed over hers.

When he pulled away he looked shocked. Younger, somehow. Confused. "Go home," he said. "Maybe I'll be in touch."

And he was gone in a blur, and Isobel was alone.

* * *

Isobel sat in a diner for three hours, drinking coffee and sobering up, and then drove home to Durham, only a couple of hours away. She didn't really react to what she had seen until she let herself silently into the apartment at three a.m., and sat shivering in the kitchenette for a long time. Picturing the waiter's face.

Could she do that to another person?

Isobel stripped off her clothes; stuck the red dress in the bottom of the garbage, hid her lingerie to launder later, and ran a shower. Before long she was huddled on the ground against the cold tiles.

When the tears came, they came thick and fast, and Isobel covered her mouth against them, but it was too late. Sad and confused, Alaric entered the bathroom, and she reached for him. He turned the tap off, wrapped her in a towel, and carried her to bed, without a word.

For a terrible moment, Isobel thought he would want to make love, or worse, demand an explanation. He did neither, just drew her in close, wrapped his arms around her, and let her cry. In the morning, without a word, he made coffee, made scrambled eggs on toast, and fed her breakfast in bed. Fresh squeezed orange juice.

Isobel had no appetite, but she ate every scrap.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Alaric asked, a deep hurt in his eyes, folding the newspaper closed.

"No," she said. "But… I think… no more research trips, at least for a while, okay?"

"That will be nice," Alaric agreed, dropping a kiss on her mouth.

Isobel tried to keep her promise. No more research trips. She tried. She was an attentive wife, worked hard on her thesis, and only crawled out of her husband's bed with her heart beating wildly in her chest to hide in the bathtub and weep a couple of times a week.

One nice night Isobel and Alaric had drinks with friends and went home to make love, and it was like the old times; slow and sweet and satisfying, and Isobel tucked her face in the crook of Alaric's neck, moaning as she came once and then again, kissing every spot she could reach. They lay together afterwards, noses nearly touching.

"If you could turn off your emotions, would you do it?"

Alaric laughed.

"I mean it. Imagine, if you never had to feel sad, or lonely, or angry, or guilty… no shame… would you do it?"

Alaric as silent for a long moment. "But what about the good ones?"

"I think you could bluff your way through them," Isobel said, settling further into the bed. "You know? You told me before, love is… what you do, you know, not just how you feel."

"It would feel a little empty without the emotions."

Isobel traced the dips and planes of Alaric's face. "But it wouldn't. Because empty is a feeling, and that would be gone."

Alaric pulled Isobel closer, and she threw one leg across his hip. "No," he said. "I wouldn't. Pain goes away regardless, eventually," he said, kissing her nose, her cheeks, her jaw.

Pain goes away?

If only.

* * *

The switch was a near daily obsession and it was for that reason that one Thursday afternoon Isobel wrote Alaric a note to say she had an opportunity to interview an expert in… Charlotte, packed her best underwear and a couple of slinky outfits and drove to Raleigh before she could lose her nerve.

She stopped at a motel to shower, change her clothes and do her hair and makeup, to settle Ava the whore across her features – the outfit matched properly, this time – and then she drove to Damon Salvatore's apartment block.

She knocked on Damon's door, amused by the sultry music she could hear filtering through. It took several long moments before he answered, and Isobel had more than enough time to settle her fuck-me smile across her face.

"Ava," he said, leaning heavily against the door jamb. His shirt was open, he had blood dripping down his chin, and he looked more like a predator than he had when he'd drained the life from the waiter. "My favorite unraveled academic. You heard there was a party?"

Academic?

Isobel's heart skipped a beat, but she didn't show it. "Well done, Mr. Salvatore. You caught me out. May I come in?"

"Always room for one more," Damon said, gesturing her in, a smile hooking exactly half his face.

In the living room four girls were dancing; he'd been feeding from them, clearly, but they were on drugs, too, amphetamines, perhaps, and she couldn't count the number of empty tequila bottles in the room.

"Wouldn't have picked you for a tequila drinker," Isobel admitted. "It's a little déclassé," she added, watching the girls dance; they hadn't noticed her. Two more were making out on the couch like they weren't sure how it was done.

Damon stood alongside Isobel, draping an arm around her shoulder. "University of South Carolina," he confided. "The girls are kind of slutty."

"I remember," she said. "Are they compelled?"

"You think I need to compel sex? Please," Damon said. "But yes, they are. A lot. Even the sluttiest of the slutty won't let you drink from them in general." As he said it, he eyed Isobel. "Speaking of which. Go to my bedroom. Take off all your clothes. Unless you're wearing thigh highs?" Isobel cocked an eyebrow. "Of course you're wearing thigh highs. Take everything else off. I'll deal with the sorority," he promised.

Isobel placed a chaste kiss on Damon's cheek. To prove a point, she thought, though she wasn't sure what her point was.

In the bedroom, she closed the door behind her.

The safest approach, she thought, would be to do exactly as he asked, and wait as long as it took for him to arrive, but she decided to take her time, instead. Collected a hanger from the wardrobe to hang her dress and coat. Took off her heels (ridiculously expensive; she'd paid cash, so Alaric wouldn't see the purchase on a credit card bill) and placed them neatly below the dress.

Her underwear, she draped artfully over the bedside light.

She walked to the ensuite bathroom to check her reflection; her makeup was perfect, and her mascara had been chosen specifically to run, if Damon decided to make her cry again.

Thigh highs stayed on, as per specification.

Isobel lay on he bed, resting up against the pillows, and let herself remember the last time she was here, touching herself gently as she remembered Damon's teeth in her thighs, in her breast. The brutal pace of their fucking, the rhythm of the head board hitting the wall. The loss of control.

Before long, she was wet enough so Damon wouldn't do much damage.

It was nearly fifteen minutes before he entered the room.

"Did you kill them?"

Damon shrugged. "Too much hassle. Six bodies? This is the penthouse. Healed them and sent them home, compelled to fuck each other until they can't see. They'll be the lesbian face of USC by the end of the weekend."

"Hot," Isobel said. "Very inclusive of you. A penchant for girl on girl, or do you have more altruistic motives?"

"I am all about tolerance. I can smell your hand, Ava. What were you doing before I came inside?"

"You want me to tell you, or show you?"

The smile was all Ava's, as was the hand running over one breast and then the other.

"I have to choose?"

Damon leaned against the door, watching.

Isobel shook her head. "Choosing is boring. I was…" she ran her hand over her belly, slipped a hand between her legs, rolled her hips a little when the finger met its mark. "I was remembering the last time I was here, and I was getting myself ready for a repeat performance. Seemed only polite to be dripping wet and ready for you."

"Polite." Damon sounded amused. "I do like you." He stripped his clothes off, quite methodically.

"You don't want help with that?" Even as she offered, Isobel didn't stop her hand, shifted to bury two fingers in the silken, wet heat she found there. Damon sneered.

"More efficient this way."

Naked, and with his erection huge and angry looking, resting against his belly, Damon regarded Isobel again.

"You should be terrified."

"Who says I'm not?"

"I can smell hormones, pheromones, adrenaline… I know when someone is afraid. You're not. You're sincerely turned on, but you're not afraid. You know I'll probably hurt you again, and yet here you are."

"Come here," Isobel said.

"You're giving me orders?"

"I'm extending an invitation. Come here, Damon Salvatore, if you want to," and then he was there, straddling Isobel on the bed. "I'm not afraid of you. The worst you could do is kill me, and then this is all over."

Damon shaped her breasts with his hands. Surprisingly tender.

"That's not the worst I could do," he argued. "You don't really think that, do you?"

Isobel smiled.

Damon lowered himself onto her body, teased and kissed her throat. Teeth, grazing, no fangs. He claimed her lips as he entered her smoothly, and Isobel wrapped her legs around his hips. "Not many people knock on my door, Ava, and even fewer do it twice." He built up a more urgent rhythm, and Isobel moaned softly, arching up against his body, taking his bottom lip in her mouth. "What are you really after?"

"I told you. I want you to turn me."

"And your husband? What does he think of this plan?" Damon laughed, deepening the kiss. "I don't miss much," he said. "You can stick your ring in your purse, but it leaves an impression on your hand."

"My husband has nothing to do with this."

"You never know. He might be into it. Maybe you should bring him with you, next time," Damon said, almost a growl. Isobel had to close her eyes against the thought of Damon and Alaric together. Alaric unspooling under Damon's hands, Damon gripping his hips tightly.

More than once, Isobel had regretted telling Alaric he could never touch a man again; more than once, she'd fantasized about seeing Alaric with someone else, all hard bodies and sharp angles, the ferocity she always imagined between men. The thought had her even wetter, buzzing and aching, rolling against Damon's hips until she felt bruises blossom.

"Shut up about my husband," she said, a hint of threat. "He'll never know what I've become. People disappear all the time. Fuck, Damon, just a bit harder," and Damon obliged, one arm wrapped tight over Isobel's back, the other holding one hand over her head, urgent and controlling.

Isobel was riding aftershocks when Damon came with a grunt, sinking his fangs into her arm.

Again that sensation that all the blood in her body wanted to rush out of the wound, cells magnetized perfectly to Damon, Damon's mouth, all things Damon.

(This, she banished as well; the image of Damon feeding from Alaric; she set it aside, where it couldn't cause such deep, sweet ache.)

Damon bit into his only lip, then, dropped it into Isobel's mouth. Again that sensation of a drug. She sucked at the wound until it healed, turned that into a kiss.

Damon rolled onto his back. "Come here," he said, and Isobel rolled into his arms.

"You're in a cuddly mood, for someone who spent the afternoon fucking sorority girls."

Damon said nothing for a long time. "You were right, what you said," and Isobel couldn't imagine what he meant. "It is lonely. You sure you want all of that?"

Isobel thought about it. "Everyone's lonely. There must be compensations."

"Why do you want to turn?"

"Who wouldn't? The world changes, you stay the same. You can experience everything, taste everything. Make people do what you want. And… there's the switch," she said, tried to make it sound like an afterthought.

"Ah. The switch. Henri tell you about that?"

Isobel nodded, lifted her head, to see Damon's face. "He did. He said he never switched it off, though. Have… have you?"

"Did you not see the room full of compelled sorority girls? Did you not watch me eat and kill a waiter I very nearly genuinely liked? Seriously, Raleigh has a shortage of waiters who know wine. I'll miss him, sort of, next time I want a recommendation for something that will go well with lobster béarnaise," he claimed airily. "Emotions are for sissies."

Isobel rested her head on Damon's shoulder again.

"Why did you change?" she asked. This felt like dangerous ground, but Damon was a little drunk, and perhaps she'd asked in just the right way; Damon told the story of Katherine Pierce.

Katherine Pierce.

Isobel betrayed nothing, but she was certain she had heard the name before. In the research materials she had been given by Chuck Taylor.

Damon pulled away. "What?"

Isobel smiled. "What-what?"

"Your heartbeat changed." Damon held Isobel's eyes. _God, he's beautiful_, she thought, and fluttered her eyelashes prettily.

"I am a girl, Damon. It's a fantastic love story, sad as it may be. And you've locked your heart up since? A pity," she said. "But maybe it's better."

Damon sat up. His features set in marble. Mouth an angry slash across his face, brow set to furious, he glared. "Better?"

Isobel sat up too, shrugging. "Love fades," she said. "You and Katherine… you'll never have to go through that."

Damon growled. "Get out. Now."

Isobel smiled, uncertain. "I thought we could go and get something to eat. And…"

"Are you deaf, or stupid? I said get out," he repeated. "Before I do kill you."

_But that's what I want_, Isobel nearly said, but hesitated; what if she hadn't had enough blood?

He stalked to the bathroom and ran the shower, while Isobel dressed quickly, and prepared to leave.

Before she did, she left a note.

_I'm sorry. Call me, if you're prepared to do this. Or if you get sick of sorority girls._

She signed it hastily, added a phone number, a disposable cell she had bought for this purpose, and returned to the hotel room she hadn't thought she'd need.

* * *

Alaric wasn't there when Isobel got home the next afternoon; didn't come home until Saturday lunchtime. Drunk, and miserable. Wouldn't meet Isobel's eye. Dropped onto the couch.

Isobel sat in his lap, slumped against him. "I'm sorry," she said. Alaric draped his arms around her, spoke into her neck; "You always are," is what he said.

Isobel led him to the shower, kissed him everywhere she could reach, brought him to orgasm with a skilful hand.

"I'm sorry," she whispered; "I'm sorry, my Alaric, I'm sorry," she promised, she lied, over and over again.

The next night, Alaric slipped into bed, alone, as he usually did, now; his assumption was that she would join him, or not, when she was ready to. Isobel climbed onto the bed, straddled him. "I have something for you," she said, with a smile on her face; after a shaky start, the weekend had been pleasant, if tentative. She produced a small jewelry case.

Alaric smiled; his eyes lit up in the way they did, sometimes, though less now than they had. "Surprise gifts aren't fair," he said. "I always feel bad for not getting you something."

Isobel chuckled softly. "Just open it," she said. Nudging him. Alaric shook his head, incredulous.

"Oh… That's a… giant piece of jewelry." He pulled the ring from its tiny nest. Isobel had been carrying the ring around in the box since Elena was born. Couldn't bring herself to wear it, let it taunt her with the inescapable knowledge that vampires weren't real, and that John Gilbert loved her. She smiled. Vampires were real and John hated her. Time to pass the ring on to someone who might need it.

"I know. It's ridiculous. Just tell people it's a family heirloom Nobody questions that."

"Where'd you get this?"

Isobel shrugged falsely. "If I told you, you'd laugh at me. But promise me that you'll always wear it." She slipped the ring onto Alaric's big hand, settling it there where it might do some good. "It'll protect you from all the things that go bump in the night." Might even protect Alaric from her, if it came to that. She only hoped it was true, that it really would keep him safe.

"A ring to ward off the demons, eh?"

Isobel fought the tears that threatened to spring from her eyes. _I'll miss you_, she thought. _You were the best thing about this life. Please be safe. Please find someone else to love_. _You deserve that_.

She didn't say these things; said, instead, "Consider it a – a token of my love, my affection, and if nothing else, an apology for being so crazy."

"Well, you are _definitely_ crazy." He wore his worry and his fear so plainly on his face, but Isobel told herself there was something else there, too; enough exhaustion so that maybe it would be a relief when she disappeared.

She traced his jaw, the shell of his ear, the bow of his mouth, with her thumb. "I'm selfish, and I'm obsessed, and I'm a horrible wife. But you love me anyway."

Alaric pulled her down for a kiss. "Yes, I do," he said, running his hands over her ribcage, her hips. "Come to bed," he whispered. "Come to bed, Isobel."

It was the least she could do, and she did it.

* * *

Isobel kept the disposable cell phone on silent and close to her body at all times, but Damon didn't call.

She moved all the vampire materials to her office. She learned it all inside out. Every photocopied journal page and newspaper report.

She procured books she spent too much money on and confirmed her suspicions that Katherine Pierce was, indeed, Katerina Petrova, her Bulgarian ancestor.

From time to time, it occurred to Isobel that if she went to Damon, to tell him this, he'd be a lot more cooperative, but she kept silent. It never did to reveal your entire hand.

Months passed. Isobel was the best wife she had ever been; and if it was a costume, what of it? It was, she hoped, the last one she would ever need to wear. Surely as a vampire she would finally be who she was always meant to be. And Alaric deserved the best of her, for the time they had left. She wore brighter colors than usual, red lipstick. She coaxed Alaric into bed, made love to him until he was snoring softly, and worked once he was asleep; and that meant they fought less than when he went to bed night after night alone.

* * *

Isobel woke one morning with Alaric smiling over her, tracing the curve of her jaw with the back of his palm. "Hey, pretty girl," he said.

Isobel grinned, and stretched, glancing at the clock radio. "Hmm… it's not even seven o'clock yet."

"Which means you shouldn't be awake for at least six hours."

Isobel linked her hands over her head. "I hate morning people."

"I'm going to be home late tonight."

Isobel nodded. Gym night, and then boys' night. "Love you," she said, meaning it. Holding his dark eyes, and then mapping his mouth again. She found she took any opportunity to catalogue Alaric's features, these days.

"And I love you too," he said, kissing her forehead.

When she eventually got out of bed, Isobel decided to work from the apartment for the day, where the phone wouldn't ring, where students wouldn't stop by. She emailed her assistant, Vanessa, to let her know, took a long shower, and settled in with an oversized cup of coffee.

Around three, there was a knock on the door. Isobel opened it without a second thought. Opened it to a pair of bright blue eyes and a beautifully cut suit.

"Ava. Going to invite me in?"

Isobel froze. "What are you doing here?"

Damon sighed, resting his foot up against the barrier that kept vampires out of homes they weren't invited into. "I'll make this simple. Invite me in, or I'll start snacking on your neighbors."

"Come in," she said, pushing the door shut behind her. "Jesus, Damon. How did you find me? I said to call."

"Turns out there is exactly one A. Saltzman in the whole of Durham," Damon said, inspecting the apartment. Looking at books on shelves, letting his fingers flutter over everything that took his fancy.

"Saltzman?" Isobel's heart unfroze, and beat like mad.

"I saw it on your credit card. Told you, I don't miss much," he said. "Pour me a drink."

On the way to the kitchen Isobel quietly collected two photo frames to hide under the sink. So Damon thought her surname was Saltzman – didn't mean he knew Alaric's name. "Wine? Tequila? There might be some vodka in the freezer -"

"No whiskey? Tequila, then," Damon said. "Edgy, Ava. Problem?"

"Wasn't expecting you to show up here."

"So I see. Not your usual… costume," he said, and it made Isobel wonder just how much he had guessed about her. "And I felt bad," he said, not sounding like he felt bad at all; bored, perhaps, in need of a diversion, certainly, but not bad. "I rarely throw a beautiful woman out of my bed. But I was feeling ornery." He accepted the glass. "If you want to do this, we're doing it here, and now."

Isobel's heart sank. "Not here," she said. "Not here."

"Here. And now. Or you'll never see me again." He took the bottle, topped his glass up, more full than before.

"Damon. My husband…"

"Ah, yes," he said. "Ideal. In a minute, you and I are going to fuck, because I'm in a mood. And then I'm going to feed you my blood. And then I'm going to drain you dry. Couple of hours after that, you'll wake up hungry and your husband will be the first thing you eat. Ties up the loose ends very nicely, don't you think?"

Isobel started to shake. "No," she said. "No."

"You want to be a killer. A monster. That will be your initiation. Now take your clothes off."

Sex could be a good distraction, she thought, so she went willingly. Damon wasn't tender, just took her, like it was his right; flipped Isobel onto her stomach, didn't even undress, just pulled his pants down to his knees, standing by the bed while Isobel lay roughly across it. Damon was controlling and rough, jerking Isobel by the hips.

Isobel felt herself respond, after a while, but mainly, she was plotting, planning; Alaric would be late home. She could get away long before he arrived. She had to focus on that. He'd be safe. She'd just be gone.

Worst came to worst, Alaric had his ring. Isobel couldn't kill him, right?

Oh, god. John believed the ring was real. That didn't mean it was.

"Why now?"

"Because I have to leave for a while. Not sure how long I'll be gone for. You begged for this, Ava. You want this? You get it now." He came with a grunt, not bothering to wait and see if she was there yet, and pulled away.

Isobel felt tears rise. "How long will I be dead?"

"Couple of hours," Damon said. "I'll be long gone. Put your clothes on," he added. "I'm sure you have a _little_ dignity."

Isobel was shaking, but she did as she was told, careful not to drip vampire semen all over the bedspread.

Damon was sitting on the couch, drinking the last of the tequila directly from the bottle, when she stepped out of the bedroom. Isobel made one last try. "Could we go to a hotel?"

Damon narrowed his eyes. "Pathetic," he said. "Goodbye, Ava." He stood and crossed to the door.

"No. Wait. Do it," she begged. "Just do it."

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Alaric, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…_

Isobel barely registered that she was drinking from Damon's wrist, but she was; drinking hard. And then the tables turned, and he was drinking from her; rough, urgent, from a tear on her throat, so painful, so painful, and she realized she was crying again.

_I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Alaric, I'm sorry, forgive me…_

And the door opened, and before Isobel felt the light die in her own eyes, she saw Alaric over Damon's shoulder.

Not late. Early, hours early.

_I'm sorry, Alaric._

She wanted to call out, warn Alaric; or maybe she wanted to warn Damon. She couldn't think clearly enough to do either, and didn't have the strength, but for a second, her mind flashed on Alaric's ring; if she couldn't save him, she hoped to god it would.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter summary:**

Isobel makes the transition to vampire. Lonely, she seeks and finds Katherine and they become friends. Katherine needs Isobel's help in managing events in Mystic Falls.

**Pairing**: Brief Isobel/Damon. Isobel and Katherine friendship only.

**Warnings**: Compelled sexual behavior (Frank and Cherie).

* * *

Isobel woke in a hotel room, disoriented and aching. Her gums ached. Her throat ached. Damon was watching television, drinking from a bottle of what looked like excellent cognac.

"Hello, sleepyhead," he said. "That was… inconvenient. You could have said you were expecting hubby. Had to blur out of there and drag your dead ass all the way here. Compel my way paste security and a surly receptionist. I really don't have time for this."

"What did you do to him?" Isobel massaged her gums, sitting up. It was overwhelming; the smells in the room. Damon's cologne, the cognac. The sweet, cloying smell of blood drying on her shirt.

"Nothing. Didn't have time. Which is a pity. Because now he will have called the police, blah blah blah. What a pain. You'll have to get as far way from here as you can."

_He's okay. He's okay_. A mantra in Isobel's head. _He's okay, Alaric's okay_.

The sounds were overwhelming, suddenly. The television, the slight static. Down on the street, cars and people and life. Someone arguing down the hall. Wood in the walls, slowly shifting.

"Hungry?" Damon's eyes were wide and curious. "You have to drink to complete the transition. Unless you're having second thoughts?"

"Starving," Isobel admitted, running her hand over her aching gums again.

"Louisa?"

Isobel hadn't noticed the woman sitting dazed in the corner, wearing the uniform of a hotel maid.

"Go offer yourself to my friend, would you? And don't scream," Damon added, returning to the film.

Louisa sat on the bed, eyes wide and dull.

"Damon?"

"Oh, for…" Damon switched off the television. "Here," he said. His face changed, and he bit into Louisa's throat, careful not to pierce the carotid artery. "Get up close. Instinct will take over."

"Do I have to kill her?"

"You're an odd duck. You're a killer, now, Ava. But no. You don't have to. You can take a little, send her on her way. Your call."

Isobel ran a careful tongue over the wound, and found instantly that Damon was right; instinct took over.

She felt her eyes change, the capillaries beneath them fill and swell; she saw red, and pushed Louisa down into the mattress, drinking hard, her teeth descending with a soft click, so right. So unbelievably fucking right, so perfect. The taste, sweet and spicy, so much of what had been so missing for so long. Isobel heard a vicious growl, and realized it was coming from her own throat.

It took a moment, or an hour, or all week, but Louisa's heart stopped beating; slowly, and then all at once. Isobel threw her head back, panting hard, wondering why. When she regained control, Damon was standing by the bed, watching her with narrowed eyes.

"That was… sort of hot," he said. "I'm impressed."

"Fuck me," Isobel said, and Damon did.

* * *

They left Louisa's body in the bathtub, wrapped in the bedding, and headed down to the street. "How do you walk around during the day?" Isobel said. She was so energized, electricity crackling across all her nerve endings. It felt incredible. She'd never felt so alive.

Damon raised his hand. "Magic ring. And no, I don't have a spare." Across the road was a bar, where the smell of pheromones was overwhelming. "Put your game face away. We have to get you out of here."

They drove back to Raleigh, to Isobel's surprise. She'd been sure Damon would dump her on the side of the road to fend for herself. When she asked him why, he shrugged. "You're proving to be more entertaining than I thought you would be. Might as well show you the ropes."

He told her how to stay clear of the sun's rays during the day, how to control a feed if she didn't want to kill; "Stick with the wrist," he said. "They're less likely to bleed out from there. Too easy to tear into a major artery, from the throat. If you can be bothered, a couple of drops of your own blood will heal them. Make sure you compel them to forget you, though. If I see an artist's rendition of you on the news I'll track you down and stake you myself."

"Where can I get a ring like yours?"

"Find yourself a witch. A decent one."

Isobel stayed with Damon for two days, hiding in his room during the day, fucking until neither could see straight, hunting at night. On the third night, he announced they were leaving.

"Well. I'm leaving. I don't really care what you do. But you're not staying here," he said.

"If you're leaving, can't I keep it? I can… I don't know, make sure no one steals your stuff," she said, feeling foolish, and suddenly adrift.

"Not my stuff. Not my apartment." He softened a moment. "You want to stay put for a while, you go to the bank. Compel someone to talk to you. You can usually stay at the nicest foreclosure in town for weeks at a time without anyone noticing."

Isobel nodded.

Damon leaned, then, to place a kiss on her mouth; soft, affectionate. Genuine. Paused a long moment, searching her face for something. Memorizing her, perhaps.

"You and I are done, Ava. Have a nice life."

With that, Damon was gone.

* * *

Isobel walked around the streets of Raleigh at night, and hid in the basement of a hospital during the day, trying to decide on her next move.

There were things she needed to do, felt she had to do, and there were things she wanted to do. She wanted to see Alaric, one last time, before she flipped the switch. She wanted to find Katherine. She wanted to see Elena, and she was thinking about paying a surprise visit to John Gilbert. Maybe to talk to him. Maybe to kill him. She'd decide when the time was right.

Isobel stood on a street corner. "Hi," she said, to two young guys about to climb into a car. "Follow me, please," and they did, and it was so easy to just drain them, drop them in a large rubbish bin. She took their car keys and drove back to Durham.

The sun was about to rise, so Isobel hid in the basement of a shopping centre before it could do her any damage. Hours later, she emerged again.

Alaric first. She went to the apartment, preparing to compel him the second he opened the door, but he wasn't there. She walked around the campus bars, concealing her features with sunglasses and a broad-brimmed floppy hat.

He'd been arrested, she quickly learned. She found a newspaper. It had to suck. Two restraining orders from the girlfriend who was now his missing wife. Isobel sighed. Oh well.

She felt a tiny pang.

Mystic Falls, then.

Isobel stopped at her building on the way off campus, compelled the security guard to let her in to her own office. She packed a small box with the most essential parts of her research, not so much that anyone would notice there was anything missing, and then she got in the car and drove.

She didn't make it all the way to Mystic Falls before the sun rose, and had to hide in a house behind a gas station; still, not all bad, as the family who lived there were a welcome meal. As an experiment, she didn't kill them. Healed them, even, and left them sitting on the couch watching a hardcore porno she found under the couple's bed, with an instruction to regain their senses when the film ended. She wondered briefly what sort of an impact it would have on the children's later sexual predilections.

The second night, Isobel arrived in Mystic Falls a couple of hours after sunset, and knocked on the Gilberts' door for the first time in fifteen years.

Miranda answered, and smiled, briefly, and then her smile faltered. "Isobel?"

Miranda hadn't changed a lot; she looked older, but nothing like her actual age. Soft hands. Isobel wondered if she even worked. Probably, she volunteered sixty hours a week, keeping up the façade of respectability that stretched thin over Mystic Falls, shiny and clean. She was still beautiful, but Isobel couldn't imagine how she had ever envied this woman anything.

"I want to see my daughter," Isobel answered. She didn't smile or bother with pleasantries. Miranda looked torn. Isobel felt surprisingly untouched by it. This kind woman who had looked after her the night John broke her little heart. Who had warned her not to drink more than one glass of champagne, and who had been so kind about the candy-cane dress.

Miranda stepped out onto the porch. "Isobel…"

Isobel sneered. "Oh, calm down. I'm not here to take her. I'm sure you've done an excellent job. I don't even want to meet her. Does she know she's not really yours?" Isobel was surprised to hear just how vicious it was, dripping from her lips. Miranda hurriedly pulled the door closed.

"What do you want?"

_I want to tear your throat open and bathe in your blood_. "I want a photograph of my daughter, Miranda. Give me that and I'll leave."

Miranda held her eyes for a long time, and then nodded, shaky. Isobel wondered if she had noticed Isobel didn't breathe, when she wasn't speaking. Miranda had to know about vampires. The fact she didn't invite Isobel in suggested she was, at least, very cautious.

"Wait one moment," she said, and went back inside.

Mystic Falls.

It had seemed so exotic when Isobel was a child; now it seemed to be exactly what it was, a depressing little country town, dull and ugly. The smell of the paper mill permeated everything, though perhaps not if your senses were dull and human.

Miranda opened the door again, and this time, Grayson was with her.

"You won't… try to speak to her?" he looked concerned, looked like a good father.

Isobel took the offered photo. "Three good things I've done in my life. Three. One was carrying Elena for nine months and the other was handing her over to you." Isobel studied the photo.

Elena was exquisite. Curly, chocolate brown hair, eyes nearly the same color. A beautiful, unforced smile, a tiny wrinkle on the bridge of her nose.

The very image of Katherine Pierce. Of Katerina Petrova.

Miranda swallowed. "That's only two." Isobel frowned. "You said you've done three good things."

Had she?

Unbidden, Alaric's face on their wedding day came to mind; but Isobel dismissed it. She shook her head. "You won't see me again," she promised, and meant it.

Miranda's voice was soft. "Isobel?"

Isobel turned.

"Thank you," Miranda said, and pulled the door shut.

Isobel stayed in Mystic Falls a few hours longer. Went to the Grill, ordered a drink. Waited. There was only one place bored teenagers would go, on a night this cold, too cold to go and sit near the Falls. Soon enough, Elena came in with a blond boy with beautiful blue eyes, a black girl who looked oddly powerful, and made Isobel's teeth ache, and a blonde girl wearing too much makeup who was pointedly letting her shirt slip from her shoulder, exposing a bright pink bra strap. She watched them play pool for half an hour, and then slipped out the door.

She promised herself she'd never set foot in Mystic Falls again.

* * *

Next step was home – not home. Grove Hill. So few loose ends anywhere – that was the beauty of not being a real person – but Trudie Peterson was a loose end, and one living altogether too close to Mystic Falls.

The night Isobel knocked on Trudie's door was a clear one, and with a cool breeze. The smell of jasmine was thick in the air, intoxicating. Trudie opened the door and took a stabbing, panicked breath.

"Isobel?"

Isobel nodded, pasting a sweet smile on her face. "It's me."

Trudie stepped over the threshold and onto the porch, throwing her arms around Isobel like fifteen years of silence had never happened. "I heard… the police came. Come in, come in."

Trudie's first mistake.

She settled Isobel at her kitchen table and made tea. "The police came and spoke to me, when you… it's been weeks, they said they'd… and I told them… but it's alright now. You're alright." She smiled brightly, but shook a little. "Aren't you? Did your husband… They thought…"

She was no less scattered than she had been as a teenager.

"I'm not fine," Isobel said, and it was the matter of a moment to have Trudie pinned to the wall, one of Isobel's arms across her throat. Too strong. Fangs out, capillaries engorged. "Don't scream. Don't make a sound. Listen to me."

Trudie's eyes went wide and flat and dull. "I'm listening," she said, and Isobel moved her arm.

"My daughter might come looking for me, one day." Trudie nodded her comprehension. "Or, someone pretending to be my daughter. Or someone else looking for me. So you have to follow the rules."

"I'll follow the rules."

"First of all; never invite anyone into this house. If you open the door and they come in, it means they're not like me. And they can't kill you. But a vampire can only come in if you invite them."

"I won't invite anyone in."

It sickened Isobel, the way they submitted, these sheep. Wanting to be told what to do, like retarded children, like dogs. The dull, stupid look in their eyes.

"If someone comes to the house, you feed them vervain tea. I'll leave you some. It's poisonous to vampires. For all I know they've been cozying up to you for years. My daughter is very special, you see. A lot of people want her. I'll leave you plenty of vervain. Do you understand?"

"I'll make the tea." A sickening, submissive nod.

"And if my daughter comes, you will send a text message to the number on this piece of paper. You won't do anything else. You won't tell anyone."

"I won't tell anyone."

Isobel considered for a long moment. "We haven't seen each other since Elena was born. You heard I spent a long time wandering around. I went to Florida, for a while. Went to school on scholarship. Duke." Isobel couldn't resist a touch of academic snobbery; why admit to USC when Duke was true as well? "And I never, never told you who Elena's father was. Tell me you understand."

"I understand," Trudie said, blinking slowly.

"Forget I was here," Isobel said last, and slipped out the front door like a ghost.

The key to survival was redundancy, so Isobel walked a block and knocked on the front door of another house. A man answered, middle aged, strong and rugged. "Invite me in," she said.

"Come in." Again, the wide, dull eyes.

"Take this phone," she said. "Keep it with you at all times. If you ever get a message on it, you walk down the street to number 2. Get the woman who lives there to tell you what happened. And then kill her."

"I'll kill her," he agreed, and behind the dull features, he looked like a man who might enjoy it.

"And then you call me. The number is in the phone. And you do exactly what I tell you to do."

He nodded, and Isobel left Grove Hill for good.

* * *

Isobel went to Philadelphia. It didn't take long to find a penthouse apartment, fully furnished, to squat in, if you could call it squatting. She covered the windows with heavy damask and set herself up to stay for a little while.

The chat rooms had worked well in the past and Isobel decided it was worth another try. She put out word that she was looking for 'Katerina Pierce' or 'Katherine Petrova'. Several names, again, but not the ones she had used before. She half expected Bug1974 to contact her again, but perhaps the name of the Petrova doppelgänger was too frightening for him.

Isobel had been making noise on the chat rooms for exactly two nights when she hit pay dirt. She had expected it to work, but not so quickly.

Isobel was drinking tequila and watching television when there was a knock on the door.

She opened it, ready with a smartass comment; one of Damon's perhaps, _I didn't order takeout_. But all words disappeared when she found Elena on the other side of the door. Stupid, stupid girl.

"Elena, you shouldn't be here," she said, and then she said nothing more because Elena's hand was a steel band around Isobel's throat, and Isobel was thrown so hard against the wall that she thought she might have fractured her skull.

Not Elena. A little too old. Oh, and a vampire. Katherine. Obviously.

"You are bringing a shitstorm down on me, you stupid woman. So I am very sorry, but your unlife is over." Not the voice of a sweet fifteen year old.

Isobel pled with her eyes. She didn't need to breathe generally but for speaking, breath was required, no question.

Katherine rolled her eyes, and let go, and Isobel fell to the ground.

"I work very hard to stay under the radar," Katherine threatened. "As far as anyone knows, I'm long dead. So who the fuck are you?"

Isobel flipped over onto her back. "A descendent," she croaked. "I only suspected, but…" she tried to sit up. "You look like my daughter," she said at last. "Just… a couple of years older."

Katherine visibly blanched.

"Prove it," she said.

Isobel climbed to her feet. "I have a photo," she said. "Just wait."

When Katherine had the photo in her hand, she seemed to shake, for just a moment. "Fuck." She shook her head. "Not a rumor, then." Almost below her breath.

"She's a Petrova doppelgänger, isn't she? She is?"

Katherine snarled, but nodded.

"Isn't that good news? What's the problem?"

Katherine shrugged. "Not a problem. Not yet. Not for another… couple of years. Tell anyone you've seen me and I'll peel all of your skin off," she threatened. She stalked towards the door.

"Jesus. You sound like Damon." Isobel deliberately turned, walked to the fridge. From the door, she pulled a bottle of white wine.

Katherine spun on her heel. "You know Damon?"

"Who do you think turned me?" Isobel shrugged. "You want a glass of this? Or shall we go out?"

* * *

An hour later, Katherine and Isobel sat in a bar on Second Street.

"So," Katherine said, pouring tequila shots, "What exactly do you know about me?"

"Enough to know you're not stupid enough to get yourself trapped in the basement of a fucking church. Which is where Damon thinks you are. He's still in love with you, did you know that?"

Katherine sneered. "Men are easy," she said. "Really, if I was going to pick a Salvatore, it wouldn't be that one."

"There's more than one? No, I knew that. I read it."

"Read it?" Katherine laughed. "Oh, you have so much to learn."

They drank from bottles until they were buzzing and drank from half the patrons, too, until they looked dizzy and weak and barely swayed to the music. They left them all alive, if ill. Katherine talked and talked, pausing from time to time to threaten Isobel with bodily harm. They visited more bars. Isobel felt the heady rush of belonging, and she and Katherine clutched each other's arms as they tripped lightly down the street.

"You got that appetite from me," Katherine boasted. "Damon was never a glutton. His brother… wow. Ever heard of a ripper?"

Katherine had so many stories, had been alive so long. Not as long as Henri, but Katherine loved being a vampire. She was relatively careful about killing. Not because she had any respect for human life – it was infinitely clear she didn't – but because she did everything she could to avoid being noticed, and especially in the last few years, with the advent of the Internet, couldn't risk an image of her appearing in any police databases. And she was clearly worried about more than just the police. She wasn't specific about where else trouble might be coming from but Isobel didn't care, much. Already she'd been feeling lonely.

Not any more.

In a dimly-lit bar that stunk of sex and blood, amphetamines-enhanced and a little too hot, Katherine and Isobel held hands at the bar because it was so thrilling to be part of a family again. A man approached them. Taller than Alaric. Handsome, in a thuggish way. Hair cropped too short.

"What would it cost me to watch you two fuck?" he asked.

Isobel was about to spit an angry retort when Katherine gave her hand a squeeze. "Who says we'd charge?"

Isobel suddenly smelled the sharp, acrid odor of pre-come. He was disgusting. For a moment, Isobel panicked. Katherine wouldn't want to…?

"Come on, Isobel. Let's take him out the back and show him what we can do with our mouths." She smiled, lascivious. Isobel grinned back.

"I say we charge him," she said, climbing off the bar stool. "But I'm like that."

They led him down the corridor that hid the rank-smelling bathrooms, past a staff dressing room and an office and a walk-in refrigerator. Katherine caught Isobel's eyes and made a wicked expression, winking. Isobel grinned back.

In the alley behind the bar, the man actually – oh, god – unzipped his pants and gripped an ugly, purple erection.

"Small," Katherine said, sneering.

For a moment, he looked angry, but only for a moment. With Katherine draining him from his left carotid artery and Isobel on the right, he barely had a chance to look shocked, and then sad, before his eyes went soft, and dead, and they let him slip to the dirty concrete.

"First joint kill," Katherine said, wiping a drop of blood from her chin. "Here's to many more."

They left him there with his dick hanging out of his pants, dead and drained, to be found by whoever had the misfortune to be passing by. So tawdry and embarrassing.

Dawn started to threaten.

"I have to get home," Isobel said.

"I'll be back at sunset," Katherine promised, and Isobel took off at a blur.

* * *

Genetic curiosity, perhaps. Perhaps she wanted to hear more about Damon. Perhaps she was just lonely. For whatever reason, when Katherine came back, she came back with some clothes, and a necklace for Isobel.

"You have a spare?"

"I have three spares. I'm not stupid."

They went out hunting, day and night. Went dancing, because the pheromones spiced the blood. They killed more often they should have, incautiously, and Isobel quickly learned to love the moment when a heart stopped beating. Usually, they ensured the bodies wouldn't be found. They travelled to New York and had twice as much fun there. Ricocheting between the boroughs, Indian neighborhoods where the men tasted like the exotic spices in one of Alaric's curries; Italian neighborhoods where everything tasted like garlic. This made Isobel and Katherine laugh.

"You know, my aunt, Genevieve Angelova…"

"We still have Angelovas in the family?"

"I don't even know if she's still alive. I haven't seen her since I was a kid. Not important. She used to tell me, when I was a little girl, that Bulgarian women were doomed to tragedy." Isobel brushed the hair away from the neck of the girl she was currently draining dry, off the path in Central Park. She and Katherine were having a picnic. Katherine was drinking the girl's very handsome boyfriend, and then they were going to eat the pastries the couple had brought.

The boy Katherine had draped across her knees groaned. "Quiet, you," she said sternly, and then met Isobel's eyes. "What do you think?"

Isobel had to think about it. "I think this is better than the alternative. Any alternative."

Katherine smiled, pushing the boy off her lap and reaching for a macaroon. "Very true, granddaughter," she said.

Isobel was vaguely aware she shouldn't enjoy being called granddaughter so much; but after so many years with no family (_AlaricAlaricAlaric_, her heart thrummed, but this was easily dismissed) she found she did.

Katherine lay back on the blanket, nibbling daintily at a macaroon, and Isobel, sated, threw the girl off her own lap and lay back also.

"Even New York is mundane, after a while," Katherine said.

"Everywhere is mundane after a while." Isobel drew her knees up, looking up through the foliage at the light that glittered there. Close to sundown. There was the gentle smell of water and humans on the air, but they were well tucked-away – why people were stupid enough to wander so far from the beaten path, Isobel wasn't sure, and it made her glad, viciously glad, the couple was dead.

"Let's pretend we're somewhere else. Portugal, hidden in the grape vines. Or Bulgaria, where we belong."

Isobel, horrified, realized tears had sprung to her eyes and she wondered, momentarily, if it was a genetic curse; the desire, the urge to be somewhere else. Doomed to homesickness and doomed to not want a home, twinned, conflicting urges. Or maybe it was simply part of the psychology of people who sought to become vampires. Damon obviously didn't want a home. Katherine drifted endlessly. Isobel, from childhood, had felt so much of the time like a trapped rat, no matter where she was. Isobel's only escape had been her costumes, always.

"I always pretend I'm somewhere else," Isobel said, and Katherine reached across to take her hand. Gave a gentle squeeze. Their eyes met across the picnic blanket, and there was a strange sound.

"That one's still alive," Katherine said. Isobel sat up. Reached across to where the girl lay, trying to moan. Barely conscious; perhaps not conscious at all, but her reptile-brain was kicking in, trying to attract attention. Isobel reached across with both hands and broke the girl's neck.

"You are such a Petrova," Katherine said, a second macaroon in her hand. "I love you, granddaughter."

Isobel smiled. "Love you too."

* * *

After a few months, nearly a year, Katherine grew bored, as Isobel had known she inevitably would. First her eyes seemed to focus further out, and she began to kill more often, incautious about leaving bodies where they might be found quickly. She was irritable with Isobel and twice, left a dead lover in her bed, and demanded that Isobel deal with the body. Isobel smiled sweetly and did as she was asked.

Isobel was disappointed, the day Katherine said she was leaving. But Isobel had her necklace, had a family again, and she and Katherine promised to stay in touch.

"Make sure you're available in November next year. I might need you."

"What for?" Isobel asked.

"None of your business, unless I decide it is." She kissed Isobel on the corner of her mouth. "Now. You and I, we're family. So, I know I don't have to tell you to keep me a secret. Do I?"

Isobel hugged her tight. "Of course not," she promised. "I'll see you soon."

Isobel started hunting around for the switch in earnest once Katherine's absence left her crushingly lonely. It was there, it had to be there. Damon had flicked his switch. Katherine had flicked hers, obviously. But it was… not there.

Isobel found herself reflecting on the most ridiculous things. Things that made her shoulders ache and her stomach hurt. Moments with Alaric, which seemed to have been yesterday, and a million years ago. The odd sense she'd had of being real, of mattering. In Alaric's arms, in Alaric's bed.

But no, this was real. This was the real Isobel at last. That other girl had been…

Maybe she would find a way to say goodbye, to give Alaric peace.

Isobel floated around the East Coast, mainly. She returned to Mystic Falls, twice. Once for no reason at all, once when she heard that Miranda and Grayson were dead. Elena was like a shell, a zombie. Isobel sat in the tree outside her window one night and watched her thrash about, fighting nightmares.

Jenna Sommers was barely an adult; still she seemed to be doing okay. Less zombie-like than Elena, anyway, not that this was a useful comparison. Jeremy dropped out of his window and crossed the roof of the verandah. He left with a very pretty girl with brown hair and a feline look. Lucky kid.

Isobel watched the house for longer than she thought she would. More interested than she wanted to be.

But she went away again, and continued to search for the switch.

* * *

Katherine called the following November.

"Where are you?" she asked. "Can you meet me in… say, Raleigh?"

"Nothing better to do," Isobel answered, and went, with a song in her heart.

In Raleigh, Katherine was cold, focused. Worried. "In a few days there is a celestial event. Unfortunately, it's one our mutual friend Damon has been waiting a very long time for. It… could enable him to open the tomb." Katherine dropped the dead body of the woman she had been drinking from, and called out to the woman's husband. He sank to his knees and exposed his throat.

"Could?" Isobel barely looked up from the couple's teenaged daughter. Tourists. They disappear constantly.

Isobel felt a pang she wished she didn't.

"Well… they need a Bennett witch, because a Bennett witch closed the tomb in the first place. There are only three living Bennett witches. One of them belongs to me. She won't help. One is Sheila Bennett, and she's… powerful, but she's old. Bonnie Bennett is a tadpole. Barely enough power to light a candle."

Isobel dropped the teenaged girl. "So why are you worried?" After a moment's thought, she took the girl's shoes. They were cute, and fit Isobel perfectly. Red with a kitten heel and a peep toe, and a tiny white bow off-centre. It occurred to Isobel that she had lingerie that matched it perfectly. For a moment she thought about Alaric, about Damon.

"Because you don't live for five hundred years without a healthy sense of paranoia, not when the oldest and most powerful vampires in the world are literally out for your blood."

"Story you haven't told me."

"And I won't. Unless I have to." Katherine smiled sweetly. "Stay close. I might need you."

Bonnie Bennett, as it turned out, was not a tadpole. And by the time she and her grandmother opened the tomb, she had blossomed into something quite problematic.

* * *

It was around that time that Elena started searching for Isobel, tripping the wire on the Trudie Peterson booby-trap. There were a number of surprises associated with this.

First of all, Isobel felt a thrill of pride when the plan went off almost without a hitch. The man – what was his name? Actually, Isobel thought she may never have known. He wasn't important. What was important was that he very ably killed Trudie, and in such a way that no one would question that it had been anything but a tragic accident.

What did come as a shock, though, was that after the man – and no, it was Gerald, something like that – threw himself in front of a bus (dramatic, yes, but Isobel wanted Elena frightened so far into her burrow that she would never come out again), her phone rang. For a moment, Isobel thought something had gone wrong; he'd survived his injuries, or something. But it wasn't him.

It was Elena.

Other than the cant of her tone, the voice was the same as Katherine's. Isobel hung up, quickly, but she couldn't deny she was shaking a little.

With this, Isobel became sure things were going to come to a head. So it was no surprise when Katherine summoned Isobel to meet her a couple of weeks later. It was a long drive, but pleasant in a stolen BMW and Isobel still hadn't managed to do anything about getting hold of money of her own, or identification she could use to fly; she couldn't access her own accounts or use her own identity or the police would know she was still alive. She stole cash near constantly, but this was inefficient. No one carried much cash these days.

Katherine paced, drinking tequila straight from the bottle. "Damon knows I was never in there."

Isobel had to smile. "If he thought you were stupid enough to get caught in the first place, he doesn't deserve you. Want to head out?"

The expression on Katherine's face was hard to interpret but Isobel got the strangest sense that she was being placated. "Let's," Katherine agreed.

They walked with their arms linked, smiling prettily at the people they passed. "I have never seen such a concentration of hot men in all my life," Isobel purred. "Do you think they shipped them in just for us?"

Amarillo, Texas, was an interesting town, especially that particular weekend. Men. Everywhere. The ratio of men to women was probably four to one. And the ratio of ridiculously attractive, heavily muscled, strong men to everyday run-of-the-mill human men was high as well.

Settling down in a small bar, Isobel decided that if there was something Katherine wanted from her, she was going to get something too.

"How do you flip the switch?"

Katherine stared at her for a long moment. "Wait here," she said. When she returned, with several bottles of liquor she had compelled from the bartender, Isobel smiled.

"The switch is a myth," she said simply. "Gin?"

Isobel froze. "No, it's not. Damon flipped his. You flipped yours," she insisted.

"There. Is. No. Switch."

Henri had spoken about it like it was shameful. Damon had spoken like it was a convenience. Isobel had asked; _have _you_ flipped the switch?_ What had Damon said?

Damon had answered, _Did you not see the room full of compelled sorority girls? Did you not watch me eat and kill a waiter I very nearly genuinely _liked_?_ He had never said, _yes, switch flipped_. He hadn't even looked at Isobel when he said it, really, just over her, and away. A little dreamy, perhaps. There was more of a dreamer, more of a romantic, in Damon than he wanted to believe, or admit to anyone. His cruelty was showy. Not for himself; for the world to see, or for the parts of the world who snuck in around the edges to see, anyway.

_Did you not see?_

Not an answer. Perhaps he really believed he had flipped the switch. Perhaps Katherine was wrong. Perhaps…

Isobel's head got crowded, and foggy, and close.

Katherine's voice was not unkind. "You kill without remorse, Isobel. I've watched you. What's the difference?"

"I still… _feel_. I don't want to." Katherine offered Isobel the glass but Isobel drained the bottle instead. Sweet burn in her throat, in her eyes, maybe.

Katherine smiled. "That's why you turned, isn't it?"

"I…" yes. Yes. Isobel felt nude, under Katherine's gaze.

"You really are fucked up. I can see why Damon liked you. I mean, he would have fucked you, either way. But the fact he let you live… the fact he turned you? You would have appealed to him. He really isn't the boy I left. I've seen him, a little, over the years. I like him better now." She shook her head. "Granddaughter. God. You're more Bulgarian than I am, and you've never even been there. There is no switch. Deal with it."

_No switch. No switch_. Isobel started to shiver. "You're lying."

"It's a story vampires tell themselves to justify the things they do. Why do you care?" Katherine drank from a tequila bottle. "You're a very good vampire. If I cared, I'd be proud that we're blood."

"You don't care? So you… what?"

"I just don't. There's no switch. I just have… very little humanity left. It's there, if I want to feel it." Katherine shrugged. "But I don't, and who would want to?"

Isobel drained a bottle of bourbon.

Katherine's voice was suddenly hard, and direct. "I need you to focus. You care. You still care. Do you care about little Elena?"

Isobel barely heard.

Katherine's hand shot across the table, burying a small knife in the back of Isobel's hand.

Isobel used the pain to come back. _No switch. No switch_. So much one of the reasons she had become a monster, the ability to choose not to feel. And it was a myth. She removed the knife from her hand, watched the wound heal shut.

"Next one goes in your eye. Do you care about Elena?"

_Fuck. Fuck_. "Yes," she said.

"Then there are a number of things you need to know. I recommend you drink a little more." Katherine smiled again. "And if you need to take notes, feel free."

_No switch. No such thing as a switch._

"I don't think I can do this right now."

"Isobel. Focus."

Isobel could hear the blood rushing in her ears but with Katherine, cold and angry, in front of her, she took an unnecessary, deep, calming breath, and nodded.

"Your sweet daughter is currently engaged in a game of tug 'o' war with my Salvatores."

Isobel flinched. "What?"

"She's in some sort of a ridiculous relationship with my Stefan, and Damon is in love with her too. Sad, really. Such obvious transference. They must miss me more than I thought." She crossed her legs elegantly. "We have business in Mystic Falls, Isobel. The Salvatores, and Elena, are a part of it."

Isobel blinked. Words presented themselves; _what's in it for me? Why should I help?_ She said nothing.

"Good girl," Katherine said softly. "Now listen up."

The problem was that with the tomb vampires out and running around, it wouldn't take long before the people who were after Katherine would show up in Mystic Falls, looking for answers.

"They can't use you to break the sun and moon curse. You're a vampire. Why would they care about you?"

Katherine narrowed her eyes. "You're smarter than you look," she admitted. "Revenge. Obsession. They want me. Well, at least, one of them wants me. They chased me for hundreds of years, and they only stopped when they thought I was trapped forever in the tomb under that church. What do you know about the curse?"

"I know if it's broken by vampires, vampires won't be affected by the sun anymore. If the wolves break it, they'll be able to turn at will, or choose not to turn at all. I know they need a doppelgänger for the ritual. But they can't use you, so -" Isobel slumped. "If they go to Mystic Falls looking for you, they'll find Elena."

"Right."

"And you have a plan?"

"I do."

Isobel drank tequila from the bottle. "What do you care about Elena?"

Katherine shrugged. "I don't. I just know that being dead has kept me well shrouded, and I don't want them looking for me again. Keeping Elena safe – frankly, if I thought I could swap her for an assurance that I wouldn't be killed, I'd do it in a flash. But they don't work that way. They'll want us both, if they know we both exist."

_No switch_. Lumbered forever with some degree of care for the man who tried to keep her tethered to the earth, the tumor that grew in her belly and became Elena.

_No switch_.

"Are you there? Hungry? Thirsty?"

It didn't matter. Isobel was a vampire. She killed without remorse. Alaric was the distant past; Katherine was Isobel's family, now, her only family. She smiled. "I'm fine. What's your plan?"

"Good girl," Katherine purred, looking up from beneath perfectly curved black eyelashes. And she began to outline her plan.

Katherine wanted a device that could be used to eliminate all of the entombed vampires in one fell swoop. "It's not going to be easy. We can't set it off, for a start."

Of course they couldn't. It would kill them as surely as the rest of the vampires. Isobel shrugged. "Compel a human."

Katherine grimaced. "It's too complicated. Compelled humans can't improvise. We need someone smart. Someone who would want to do this."

Isobel sat up a little straighter. "I know someone. Someone who would be very motivated."

"Who?"

"Elena's father." Isobel rearranged herself in her chair. "He'll do it. He'll get it. He hates vampires," she added. "And, bonus?"

"Yes?"

"He's a Gilbert. So he'll know where it is." The pressure in Isobel's head seemed to pulse. Still she smiled prettily and watched as Katherine spoke and ate up every word, though her stomach ached.

Katherine shook her head. "It's in two parts. One part looks like a music box – I'm sure he'll find that, easily enough. But the other part was stolen by one of the tomb vampires. She would have brought it out with her, but she's not going to want to give it up. You see the problem."

"Nothing is insurmountable."

"I knew I could count on you. One last thing." Katherine's eyes narrowed, her gaze sharp as crystal. "The Salvatores are to be kept safe. I want them alive."

At this, Isobel was surprised. "You pretended to be dead for a hundred and fifty years. What do you care about them?"

Katherine shrugged. "They know, now. So I might come out of hiding. Perhaps I want my Stefan back. And toying with Damon was always fun." She turned the knife in her hand again, a thinly-veiled threat. "The Salvatores are not to be touched. I don't care what you do or how you do it. Kidnap Elena and make them run after her. Whatever. But you get them far away from the device before it goes off."

Stefan, with his hands all over Elena. Damon, _wanting_ his hands all over Elena.

Isobel smiled. "Of course." She gripped Katherine's hands in her own. "We can do this. Easy as breathing. Easy as killing. Now. Tell me. Why Amarillo?"

Katherine smiled, and there was so much predator in it than Isobel swore anew that she would do whatever it took to keep Katherine on-side.

"Best invention of the last forty years," Katherine said. "Gay rodeo."

Katherine might have been right. They compelled seats that gave them an excellent view of some gorgeously muscled bodies climbing onto ferocious, bucking horses.

"This is making me hungry," Katherine growled. "That one's femoral artery would be…" She gave a shiver. "Shall we get takeout?"

Isobel agreed. "Let's watch a little longer, though. I want to really _choose_ one, not just grab some junk on the way out."

Katherine did a lot of mewling, squirming worse by the minute. "It's so… hot," she said. "I don't know what it is about man on man."

Isobel wrinkled her nose. "I don't really trust a guy who can't handle cock." She shrugged. "Totally straight guys seem sort of… I don't know. Weak, or something."

"How adorably heterophobic of you, granddaughter," Katherine said, from under heavily lidded eyes. "That husband of yours must be something."

Isobel grinned, despite herself. "You have no idea."

"You'd better hope he never meets Damon." Katherine grinned. Isobel flinched. "Come on. I want to leave. Let's go back stage and find something to eat. And then I think you have a job to do."

On the way backstage, having compelled their way past two lots of security, they selected a couple of particularly fine specimens. Abandoning Isobel's stolen BMW, and Katherine's stolen motorbike (she looked at it with an oddly sad expression, Isobel thought), they instead took the cars that belonged to their new toys.

Katherine threw her arms around Isobel's neck. "Keep in touch. Tell me when you've succeeded. Okay? I have to stay well clear of Mystic until it's done." She pulled away, and Isobel smiled.

Katherine hesitated, an oddly pronounced, slow turn. "I was just thinking. It's probably too late."

"Too late for what?"

"To hope your husband hasn't met Damon."

Isobel felt a faint prickle of alarm. "What do you mean?"

"Did I forget to mention?" Katherine smiled, smoothing Isobel's hair. "Another reason you might find Mystic Falls… diverting."

"Yes?"

"New history teacher. Very handsome. Name of Alaric Saltzman."

_No switch no switch no switch._

Isobel shrugged. "And here I thought he'd be in jail for my murder by now. I'll be in touch." She climbed into her new car, and off they went.

* * *

Under Isobel's monstrous gaze, the cowboy, whose name was Frank, wasn't actually that gay; he fucked her readily enough, and he doubled as a vending machine. She began to teach him French, drove when he needed to sleep. He had enough money in his bank accounts that she would be fine, financially, for a while; enough so she suspected he was making money from crooked congressmen and television evangelists with a penchant for cock.

Once in New York, Isobel tracked down the new firm John was working for. She compelled her way through the layers of security and made herself comfortable in his spectacular office while he was at lunch. Totally worth the effort when he returned to his office to find her snacking on his secretary.

"Hello, John," she said, and when he tried to escape, she threw him to the ground and placed a high-heeled foot on his neck. God, she loved vamp speed. "Don't imagine I'll hesitate to kill you. I'm not the girl I was."

John lay on the ground, shaking. Isobel removed her foot.

He tried for dignity, and it was sort of adorable, the way he drew himself up to full height. Towering over Isobel and terrified still. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

Every inch of him was screaming _vampire, vampire_, but instead, he asked what she was doing there.

"Did you know that our daughter is fucking a vampire?"

John half staggered, landing in a chair. "No," he said. "No. Her father would. No."

"Her father? Do you mean your brother?" John flinched, gaped. "Incoherent is a pathetic look on you, John. Pull yourself together." She gazed out the window, falsely casual, careful to ensure John saw the rays of sun play across her pale face. "We need to talk." She sat at his desk, rifled through papers as if they meant a thing to her.

"Not here," John said. "Fix her, would you?" Cocking his chin at the pretty secretary.

Isobel cut her thumb on one fang, her eyes on John, relishing the pain in his eyes, the way he turned away from her true face. She stuck her thumb in the woman's mouth. "Suck it," she said. The woman sucked halfheartedly. "Suck it like you suck John's cock," she amended, and laughed when the woman started fellating her thumb. "You are such a cliché," she told John, pulling her thumb away. She took the woman's chin in her hand. "In ten minutes, you'll be fine. You'll get back to work and forget this ever happened."

John led Isobel to a bar a few blocks from his office. The fear and loathing on John's face was beautiful.

"I suppose you know, by now, that the tomb beneath Fell's Church has been breached. And you know Katherine Pierce wasn't in it."

John only nodded.

"An ancestor of yours created a device, in two parts. It can kill any vampire in… say, a five-block radius. Katherine and I need you to get it."

John visibly flinched. "You're working with Katherine?"

Isobel outlined the plan, and the importance of keeping the vampires who were looking for Katherine well away from Mystic Falls. "But there's something else."

John sipped from his wineglass, his hand shaking.

"Katherine made it very clear to me that the Salvatores are not to be harmed."

John nodded. "But you…"

"Don't say it. Don't even think it. Go to Mystic Falls. Tomorrow. And do whatever you have to do to get that device. I'll be working on a way to make sure that sometime in the not too distant future, all of the entombed vampires are in the one place. Town square, I think. That would be easiest. One of those interminable Founders' things. You'll email me a copy of the schedule for the next couple of months."

"I have a job, Isobel. I can't just -"

Isobel gripped his leg so hard she could have torn flesh from it. "Don't pretend you have a choice about this," she snarled. "You'll leave tomorrow. Or I'll know about it."

Isobel spent two more days in New York. In a bar in Brooklyn, she took a shine to a singer going by the stage name Cherie. A French name, which Isobel took as a sign. Cherie was beautiful, and sang in the most indecent lingerie, so Isobel actually let her pack a couple of bags.

It was fun to watch her fuck Frank, and Cherie gave great head, so she decided to keep them both, for the foreseeable future.

* * *

John called every couple of days, for several weeks, cataloguing his failures, and the reasons for them, until Isobel was bored to tears with it. He had the part that looked like a music box, but no one knew about the other part. Days later, a week, he knew what the other part was, but not who had it.

And then he knew where the other part was; and it was Damon Salvatore who was in possession of it.

"Pathetic," she told him, and also, "I'm on my way."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter summary:**

Isobel's side of season 1, episode 21: _Isobel._

**Pairings**: Stefan/Elena, implied Damon/Alaric.

**Warnings**: Compelled sexual behavior (Frank and Cherie).

Dialogue from the show is the property of the writers and the CW.

* * *

"This will do," she told Frank and Cherie, when she had found the nicest foreclosure in town. "Don't you agree?"

They nodded dumbly, and Frank took all of their bags inside. Overloaded, every muscle group stood in sharp relief. "Nice," she said to Cherie. "Don't you think?"

The house was luxuriously appointed, and fully furnished. Kind of so many people to live beyond their means. Isobel never wanted for a nice place to stay. An elegant, curved driveway added class though a gardener would not have gone astray. The house was on two levels. Several bedrooms. A kitchen fit for entertaining the most demanding guests.

Isobel poured tequila, put some music on the stereo.

"Dance," she told Frank and Cherie. They danced, like marionettes. "Dance like you want to fuck each other," she said. They obeyed, but both looked a little weak. It was possible she was overfeeding from them.

Isobel called John.

"I need you here tomorrow, with an update," she said. "Now. Where will I find my husband?"

John was silent a long time. "I have no idea where he lives."

"How adorable. I said, where will I find him? If I have to ask you in person, I won't ask nicely. Don't grow a spine now, John. It's way too late in the game. He'll be at the Grill?"

"It's still the only place in town you can buy a drink," John admitted. "Not a bad guess."

"I've driven him to drink again. Not that it's hard, with that one, but it does give me a warm glow. Tomorrow, John. And have good news," she added, before hanging up. Loving the no-shit tone in her voice.

Perversely, Isobel tried on half of her clothing before leaving the house. She was shooting for vampire chic, she thought, but also something that would be utterly alien to Alaric, an outfit that would make him flinch.

Frank drove her to the Grill and obediently sat in the car, waiting for her to come out.

Even from outside the doors, through the dimly lit and partially shuttered windows, Isobel could see Alaric's hunched form at the bar. Pinching at the flesh on the bridge of his nose, the way he did when he was tired, or stressed.

Before she could push the door open, Isobel took several steps away. She pressed herself against the wall for a long moment, breathing, unnecessarily, enjoying the odd calm it brought.

And then she stopped, abruptly. Because there might not be a switch, but Isobel was a fucking vampire, didn't feel or care or care to feel. She stood straight, marched through the door, and sat beside Alaric on a tall stool.

"Hello, Ric," she said.

Alaric startled, and flinched, and then his face twisted into something terrible. Grief, and worse than grief, contorted his face. Brow furrowed and lips turned down.

Not afraid. Angry, and hurt, but not afraid.

He smelled earthy, but alien. Bourbon – he'd been drinking too much, for too many weeks, hypocrite – and wood smoke, maybe. Aftershave that was not his own, something which brought to mind bergamot and Szechuan pepper. Whoever he was sleeping with, perhaps. It was faintly familiar, but unidentifiable for all that. Isobel felt a mild stab of jealousy.

He looked different, too. More muscular. He was always fit, but with a long line to him; he looked like a fighter, now, somehow. Isobel supposed she was responsible.

Oh well.

"It's good to see you. You look good. I hear that you're a high school history teacher? How is that?" Only words. Isobel reminded herself she didn't care. She had a purpose in being here, in sitting so close. She thought briefly about compelling him, maybe making him take her back to his house for a quick go-round, but no. Vervain in his pocket, the last scent she recognized.

Alaric shook his head, and choked on his words. "Where have you been, Isobel?"

She shrugged. "I don't have any reasons that are gonna comfort you. I don't have any explanations that are gonna satisfy you. I wanted this."

Alaric swallowed, shook his head slowly. Even in the midst of this, all that she had done, he still loved her. "It's that simple?"

Isobel smiled. "Yes. You were supposed to mourn me, and move on."

And then, for a long and horrible moment, Isobel thought Alaric might cry. Probably in his adult life he had done this five times, and each time, it was her fault. Guilt twisted her gut, but she dismissed it. Like so many other human emotions she ignored. Like a mosquito. "You were my wife, and I loved you. How could I _not_ search for you?" He choked on every syllable.

The fact he didn't point out that he had been the prime suspect in her disappearance, had been arrested – for the third time – on suspicion of having done her harm, was sort of impressive.

"Because I wasn't lost, Ric." Isobel took a napkin, and wrote her phone number on it. "I understand that you know my daughter Elena and I hear that she's been looking for me." This wasn't a stretch; it was a guess, but one that hit its mark accurately enough. Alaric's face crumpled. "So…" Isobel handed over the napkin, smiling widely. "I want you to arrange for a meeting with us."

The last lie; the last deception between them. The infant Elena. Shattered, now. Isobel pictured Alaric looking at her in his history class every day, perhaps hating her.

No. Alaric didn't hate. It wasn't in him. Even now, facing Isobel again, the one person he truly should hate, he couldn't.

Pathetic, again pathetic.

Alaric looked dumbly at the napkin, shaking his head slowly. "You want me to deliver a message?"

Still smiling – wider, perhaps, the smile of a shark, of a crocodile – Isobel gave a sharp nod. "Yeah."

Alaric, terrible grief still marring his features, replied, slowly and deliberately: "Screw you. You selfish bitch." Said it like a fact, not an accusation; and an entirely fair one, before crumpling the napkin, and dropping it on the bar.

Isobel let him leave, let him get out to the parking lot, and then blurred out of the Grill to meet him there. Living in Mystic Falls had clearly improved his sense of threat detection, because he turned on his heel. "What do you want from me?"

"I told you."

"I'm not gonna do anything for you."

Arrogant. In less than a second, Isobel had Alaric pinned against his car, very effectively cutting off his air supply with an arm across his throat. Still her voice was calm, the tone as much a threat as the words she spoke. "You better tell Elena that I want to meet or I'm gonna start killing the citizens of this town, one by one. And I'm gonna start with your history students. Got it?"

With one vicious burst of energy, of near-hate, for stripping away Isobel's defenses for all those years, for forcing her to be real, to be a whole person, for making her own her lies, Isobel threw Alaric to the ground.

She didn't wait to watch Alaric pick himself up. She strode to where Frank sat stupidly in the car. "_A la maison, le mec_," she said; and Frank drove them home.

Isobel drank deeply from Frank and Cherie both, until they both looked ill. She told Cherie to fuck Frank in the ass with a huge black dildo she'd purchased on a whim in a sex shop in one of the towns they'd passed between New York and Mystic Falls, and when that didn't cheer her up, she told Frank to cry as Cherie pumped away.

_No switch._ How she'd wanted that switch.

Isobel had no real need for sleep, but she slept, to while away the hours.

* * *

The following day saw Isobel slightly less self-loathing. She ensured a good meal for her pets, including just enough of her own blood to let them begin to heal from their injuries; still she loved the look of the bites in their flesh, particularly on the inside of Cherie's pale thighs, so she didn't give them a lot. It wouldn't do to let them get excited. She played music, poured champagne, poured glasses of brandy. Arranged piles of fruit on a platter she found in the kitchen. They danced, and it was pretty to watch, so Isobel stretched out on the chaise and did that, watched.

John arrived, more afraid than he was the last time they met. He stunk of it. He didn't shake hard but it was an effort. Isobel smiled like a cat plotting against a rat. "You're late." She hadn't said anything about a time, but making John squirm was always such a lot of fun.

"I didn't realize there was a schedule. What's with the side show?"

"Cherie is a little jazz singer that I picked up in a blues bar in Brooklyn. And I got the cowboy at a gay rodeo in Amarillo." Isobel rolled her hips, settled further into the cushions on the chaise lounge.

John flinched. "He's gay?"

"Not right now. He's really good to me. _Eh, Cherie. Cassez-vous_."

Moving slowly, they shuffled out of the room. Isobel stood and smiled coquettishly, thrusting a hip out to the side. "I'm teaching them French. Oh!" She narrowed her eyes. "I can smell the judgment coming off of you."

"Well, they're people, Isobel. And you're treating them like dolls."

Truthfully, Isobel was impressed by the fact John made any attempt to stand up to her. Still, it wouldn't do to tell him that, so she snarled, instead. "If we're gonna be partners, you really have to stop being such a hater."

"We're in a partnership together because we share a mutual goal. Don't ever confuse that for an acceptance of your lifestyle."

"My lifestyle?" Adorable. As if Isobel was a vegetarian, or a nudist. "So, I assume that you still don't have the invention."

John looked nervous, at this. "I'll get it. I said I would."

"Uh, you threatened to expose Damon Salvatore that didn't work. You killed that Pearl lady, still no invention. I really don't think that your plan is working, John."

"Well, you being here is not going to help anything."

There was a fine line between adorably assertive, and plain arrogant, and this crossed it. Isobel slapped John, open-handed, and not hard – still, more than enough to send him flying across the room. He grabbed at his face and hunched into a ball, instinctively protecting his organs, as primates – indeed, most mammals – will tend to do when threatened.

Almost acidic, Isobel spat her final words. "You failed, John. I'm gonna take care of things from here." She stepped away, arms crossed over her chest. "Don't think that means you're off the hook. Your job is to finish this. Or I'll hand you to Katherine, naked and gift-wrapped."

John cowered another long moment, and then glanced up to see if Isobel was there. She wasn't. Isobel was seated on the chaise once more, smiling. "You may go," she said, and John didn't wait for a second invitation.

The phone rang around lunchtime. "Alaric," she purred. "I'll meet her right now. Where?"

"Not now," he barked. "It's the middle of the school day. Later. Four thirty."

"Now," Isobel repeated, growling low in her throat.

"Four thirty."

Perhaps it wasn't worth quibbling over. Isobel sighed. "Fine. Four thirty. At the Grill. And she'd better be there alone. Do you understand?"

Alaric was silent. "You don't think we're stupid enough to send her in there unprotected," he warned.

"So stay close. I don't care. But Elena comes in alone. She and I have mother-daughter things to discuss. No Salvatores. No history teachers. Just us girls." Even to Isobel's own ears, she sounded ice hot, dangerous. "Do you understand me?"

Alaric was silent a long time, and then muttered something that might have been 'yes' – and then he hung up. It was almost, but not quite, too easy.

Isobel called Katherine with an update. "You are such a Petrova," Katherine said, and Isobel didn't pretend she wasn't being groomed. "Call me when it's done."

* * *

Isobel made certain she would be late; made note of Damon and Alaric, across the road in the park, Damon moving like a caged animal, Alaric altogether too still.

Isobel paused, watching.

Damon was stalking, pacing. But he got altogether too close to Alaric too many times. Alaric should have hated Damon. Had every reason to. But he didn't even flinch, not even when Damon passed close enough to touch.

Way too familiar. Isobel narrowed her eyes and watched them a few minutes longer.

Alaric was affectionate, always had been, and there was no hint of that between him and Damon. But there was something.

Except no.

Alaric knew, now, knew everything; he would barely tolerate Damon's continued existence, Isobel was sure of it. Katherine's offhand comment aside, Isobel dismissed the whole Damon-and-Alaric concept out of hand.

She catalogued the Grill on the way in. Stefan was pretending to play pool, or snooker, something – and oh, he was pretty, she saw how Katherine might have chosen the way she did (though the eyes on Damon, maybe not); and last, she spotted Elena, pretending not to shake like a kicked dog at a table as close to the middle of the room as she'd been able to find.

That was fine by Isobel. She didn't want Elena dead. A dark corner wouldn't help. Any threats made there in the centre would be so very public; much more effective than those made in the shadows.

Isobel sat, theatrically. Crossed her arms over her chest. "Hello Elena. You look just like her, that's eerie." It was sort of true. Their faces were identical, certainly, but Elena wore no trace of Katherine's cruel amusement; she wore far less makeup, straightened her hair, sat a little hunched. In a few years, with her adolescence behind her, the illusion would be gone for good.

Elena didn't bother with a greeting. No tearful reunion, then. "You've met Katherine?

"She found me after I turned." Not entirely untrue. Overall, one of the lesser lies Isobel had ever told. She had told greater lies by omission. "Genetic curiosity, I suppose. She would be fascinated by you."

Flinching, Elena looked away. Her eye caught on Isobel's necklace. "Is that how you can walk in the day?" Isobel closed her hand over the pendent.

She smiled. "Katherine helped me obtain it." Again, not quite a lie. Isobel realized she was trying to make herself sound a little more interesting than she was; still, no harm.

"Who's my father?"

Isobel shook her head. "Not important. He was a teenage waste of space."

"A name would be nice." She was tough; Isobel decided she liked Elena, a little.

"It would, wouldn't it? You ask a lot of questions."

"Why did you compel that man to kill himself? Right after he told me to stop looking for you."

Isobel grinned. She hadn't been sure it would work, instructing him over the phone; the compulsion had held strong. She was immensely proud of the whole thing, even Elena's voice on the phone afterwards, the sad little hitch. "Dramatic impact. I wish it would have been more effective."

"Human life means that little to you?" Elena's face was hard, her lips set in a harsh line.

"Means nothing to me. It's just a part of being what I am."

Elena shook her head. "No, it's not. I know other vampires. That's not true."

Isobel fought the urge to sigh, to tell Elena all she knew was half-neutered, oversized little boys. "Your new boyfriend over there by the pool table? Stefan Salvatore." From across the room, Isobel felt Stefan flinch. Some tiny movement in the periphery of her vision. "Why Stefan? Why you didn't go for Damon? Or are you enjoying them both, like Katherine did?"

Over Isobel's shoulder, Elena's eyes sought Stefan. Isobel wondered how much she knew, how much more she had guessed. She wondered, even, for a moment, if they were, indeed, sharing her daughter. Passing her between them like a pet.

She couldn't wait for them both to die. Both Salvatores, dead and decaying. Especially…

No. Neither, especially. Stefan with his hands all over Elena. Damon, _wanting_ his hands all over Elena, and maybe with his hands all over Alaric. Jesus fuck. Alaric should be planning to adopt some shelter puppy with Ben by now. Should be a million miles from Mystic Falls.

Elena swallowed. "Why did you want to meet me? Can't be just to catch up." She looked like she wished it _was_ to catch up. Too much knowledge for a girl so young. Couldn't be helped.

"Because I was curious about you." She fought the urge to laugh, when Elena's eyes turned hopeful. "But the real reason is: I want what your uncle wants. Jonathan Gilbert's invention."

"How did you know my uncle?"

"I used to spend a lot of time here when I was younger. John had a crush on me for years. He was the first one that told me about vampires."

Elena squirmed. "So what made you want to be one?"

"A very long list of reasons, Elena. All of which I'm sure you've thought about."

Elena shook her head, vehement. "No."

Isobel narrowed her eyes. "That was your first lie. It's inevitable, you're going to get old. Stefan won't. Forever doesn't last very long when you're human."

(Even as she said it, Isobel felt like a fraud. She hadn't yet lived a single human lifetime. Still, the wisdom sounded vampiric, and timeless, so she let it settle between them like thick, grey ash.)

Elena made as if to get up, heartache in her eyes. Not well concealed, though Elena probably thought she looked pretty tough. "I'm sorry, but I don't have what you're looking for."

Quicker than quick, Isobel grabbed Elena's wrist. Almost tight enough to break the bone. She heard Stefan take a single step on the slate floor. "Sit down. And tell your boyfriend to walk away. I want the invention."

Elena gave a tight nod, and winced at the pain in her wrist, sitting down and snatching her hand away. "I don't have it," she said.

Isobel smiled again. "I know that. But Damon does, and you're going get it for me."

Elena shook her head. "He's not going to give it to me."

"Then the blood will be on your hands." She stood up, collecting her purse. "It was nice meeting you, Elena."

Isobel could smell the tears form in Elena's eyes, as she walked away.

It wasn't dark when she left the Mystic Grill, but the sky was darkening. A lovely dull gold was teasing the horizon. Damon and Alaric were leaning against a picnic bench, shoulders barely an inch apart.

Neither spoke, but Damon looked up every few moments. Like he was trying to decide what to say, to make things better. Alaric's face was tilted just a few degrees towards Damon's.

Isobel stopped walking, crossed her arms over her chest, and watched.

Alaric said something; Isobel couldn't hear him, thanks to a light breeze in the wrong direction. But he said something. And Damon reached a hand out, brushing it over Alaric's elbow.

Just barely. Alaric would scarcely have felt it through his jacket. A brief, fond gesture, and one which should have repulsed Alaric.

Damon moved, suddenly, reaching for something in his pocket. His phone. Stefan was calling him. Alaric watched as Damon spoke into the phone. Damon looked angry.

Alaric pushed himself away from the bench, and took a step, before Damon stopped him.

You don't need to be able to read lips to know when someone has asked, 'are you okay?'

Isobel bit her lip. Fuck. This. This wasn't what. She.

Isobel swallowed, hard.

This wasn't what she was expecting. Alaric nodded, shook his head, shrugged. Took another step, before Damon tugged on his sleeve. Alaric gave a cursory glance around – Mystic Falls wasn't Durham – as if he knew what was coming, and leaned into the kiss Isobel could see Damon was about to plant on him a good five seconds before it happened. Damon's hand slipped to Alaric's waist.

It wasn't… it didn't look the way she thought it might. There was genuine affection in it. Isobel's stomach turned, and a vicious stab of jealousy shot through her. Just a quick kiss, but Isobel knew Alaric well enough to know it wasn't the first time, and that he… was drawing something from it. Strength, or something like that.

In Damon's bed, Isobel had imagined him and Alaric together – imagined it fleetingly, but with enough detail so that now, she had more than enough to complete the picture. She wondered if Damon bit Alaric. Where. Did he drink, or just taste? Christ, she couldn't help it, she wondered who topped, and then she had to tear her eyes away, thighs quivering, bottom lip swelling just a touch.

She hated them both and wanted them both so badly that she felt the urge to kill something immediately.

* * *

Isobel spent the early part of the evening hunting, and checking in with Katherine's spies around Mystic Falls; a teacher at the school, one of the Sheriff's deputies, a council member. There was no news.

She returned home to a lovely surprise, Damon half-naked on the couch, playing strip poker with Cherie. She banished all thoughts of Damon and Alaric from her head, and grinned viciously, instead. Not Ava, no, Isobel was in control – but a new persona nonetheless.

The real Isobel. She wondered what Damon would think of her now.

Damon was unbuttoning his pants when Isobel entered the room, and she felt that same strange longing. Still, she strutted. Vampires strut. Isobel was a vampire. Therefore, she strutted.

"Oh Cherie," Damon said, his voice dripping with flirtation. "You won again. I hope I'm wearing my good underwear."

As if Damon Salvatore wore underwear. "And it's just one blast from the past after another." Damon started to button up his pants. Isobel protested, somewhat. "No, no, no." She smiled, and flicked her chin at Cherie. "_Degage_, Cherie," she said. Damon made a face, flashed Isobel a hand gesture which indicated Isobel's pet was somewhat to his taste. He added a half grin, a sight so forgotten and familiar Isobel's heart skipped a beat. Perhaps the night would be more interesting than she had anticipated. No one who looked at her like that could be serious about her husband; or about a seventeen-year-old girl, for that matter.

"It's good to see you, _Isobel_. I was just having fun with your naughty little minion." He pronounced Isobel's name – her real name – with some precision. She had half-expected him to call her Ava. Damon shrugged into his shirt.

Isobel smiled. "How did you find me?"

Damon took slow, stalking steps towards her, and then blurred the rest of the way across the room, speaking to her from an inch away. "Searched all the neighborhood bank-owned foreclosures and found the most expensive one."

"I should have known. You were the one who taught me that." Isobel kept her posture relaxed. "What are you really doing here?"

"Well, you caused quite a stir when you blew into town. Saw everyone except the man who made you. I'm a little hurt."

"I'm so sorry." Isobel yanked Damon's hair, hard. Caught him by surprise. "Did you bring the device?" Damon laughed, as Isobel released his hair, and stalked across the room to pour him a drink.

"Ow," he said, but it was more of an injury to his ego than his hair follicles, and Isobel laughed. "What are you doing with John Gilbert?" Damon sounded damn near protective. It was a little appealing.

She smiled. "We dated a few times when we were young. He was a little bit in love with me." Eyes bright and daring. Damon continued to circle like a hyena waiting for a flash of exposed underbelly to bite into.

"I'm sure," he said. "One of the many. Now, this little invention. What do you want with it?"

"Oh, me personally? I don't want anything with it." She passed Damon a glass of blood, and he put it straight down again. This dance. Isobel knew it well, and was anticipating how it would end, in blood and sex and screaming. Whatever was going on with Alaric, it clearly didn't mean the same for Damon as it did to Alaric. Damon's eyes flickered from Isobel's eyes, to her lips. Over her body, undressing her mentally, remembering her, perhaps. "I'm just doing what I'm told. You know, Damon, we are on the same side." Damon caught her chin on the end of his finger.

"Oh yeah? What side is that?"

"Katherine's."

Damon's eyes went wide, suspicious. His feet were glued to the ground in shock. Isobel put her hands around his face, leaning even closer.

She took another step. "She wants John Gilbert to have the device, and I think that _you_ know that she's not happy when she doesn't get what she wants." She transferred her hands to Damon's neck, and he slapped them away, rearing back. Angry, now, blood running hotter.

Oh, but Isobel was going to fuck him until he couldn't _see_.

"Why are you doing her dirty work?"

"Don't kill the messenger. We both know that you can't control Katherine. She does what she wants."

Damon snorted. "So do I."

"Oh really, Damon? You do?" Isobel crossed the room at a blur, pressed her body against Damon's. Breathed his air. "What we should do now?" Their lips almost met, laughing, still cautious. Predators both. "Oh, yeah. Memory serves." She ran her tongue over Damon's bottom lip.

He was close enough to smell, and there it was; bourbon, sandalwood, old paper. Alaric's scent beneath the pepper and bergamot of Damon's own aftershave. A combined scent.

Oh yeah. Alaric and Damon, Damon and Alaric. They were all over each other. Regularly. Frequently.

Isobel resisted the urge to tell Damon she knew, tease him, ask him to call Alaric here and make it a memorable night for all three of them. She didn't fancy being staked and left on the floor of the nicest foreclosure in town to dry out like an old prune, so she claimed Damon's mouth with her own, instead.

Pepper and wood smoke and bourbon and sandalwood.

And then she and Damon were against a wall, and then on the couch, taking up space wherever space was available, kissing deeply, each with the faint flavor of blood on their tongues. Isobel wondered if she was tasting her husband on Damon's mouth when suddenly, her skull met the hard floor, and she cried out.

Damon's hand was a steel vice around Isobel's neck.

Damon snarled, growled. "Now that I have your attention, listen up. You do not come into my town, threaten the people I care about. Going after Elena and Alaric? Bad move. You leave them alone or I will rip you to bits because I _do _believe in killing the messenger. You know why?"

He slammed Isobel's skull against the marble floor again. "Because it sends a message. Katherine wants something from me? You tell that little bitch to come get it herself."

Mustering her remaining dignity, Isobel grinned. "Does my husband know you're in love with my daughter?"

Damon cracked Isobel's skull one more time, and this time, she felt the flesh open. Damon was gone before Isobel's tears started to fall.

Fine. Time to up the ante.

It was the work of an hour, the following day, to track down Caroline Forbes. Two years had been good to her. She was a pretty thing, if no less desperate for attention than she had been when Isobel had caught a glimpse of her at the Grill with Elena.

Caroline wore a necklace full of vervain around the porcelain of her throat. It took a tenth of a second to tear it off her. Isobel couldn't be bothered with small talk. "Tell me everything you know about Elena, and the people she cares about," she said. "And I'll let you live."

Caroline talked. She talked about Bonnie, about Matt, about sweet little Jeremy. She just talked and talked until she was saying things Isobel didn't want or need to hear. Isobel compelled her to forget, returned the necklace, and set the second-last part of her plan in motion.

* * *

The carnival was fun. The whole thing was fun. Listening to sweet Matt's arm break gave Isobel chills. The look on Elena's face when she realized she was at Isobel's mercy. Isobel played the moments over like a show reel in her head.

Isobel called Katherine. "I'll confirm tonight," she said. "But I should have the device in a couple of hours. Elena's bringing it to me herself."

Katherine sounded impressed. "You did it."

"It was fun, in the end. I got to break a few bones. Even got to watch John Gilbert get beaten to hell. Worth it just for that," she said, smug.

Katherine laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Call me later," she said, and hung up.

Isobel met Elena exactly as planned in Mystic Falls' town square. She looked angry. Impressive. Tough. Isobel cocked her head. "Where is the device?"

"Where is my brother?" Elena's shoulders and lips were set in matching, harsh lines.

The square looked quite pretty in the moonlight, highlighted by old-fashioned streetlights. The perfect setting for a confrontation like this. Yes. Theatrical. It required a real angry vampire face to set the rest of the scene, Isobel thought. She narrowed her eyes. "This is not a negotiation. Where is the invention?"

"Where is my brother?" Elena took half a step forward.

"Do you really think that I came alone?" Not that Elena was any kind of threat; still, every advantage was an advantage.

Elena turned, saw Frank and Cherie standing neat and dangerous behind her. Her eyes flashed in hate. Frank had broken Matt's arm. "Do you think that _I_ came alone?"

Of course not, Isobel thought, looking over her shoulder. Damon and Stefan. No Alaric, though, and there was a pang, at that; he should have been there as well, to complete the picture.

He probably wasn't very far away.

Isobel sighed, rolled her eyes. "For God's sake, call home. Ask to speak to your brother."

Elena turned, made the call. After a muffled conversation, she hung up the phone. There was something like hope on her pretty face. "You would never gonna hurt him," she said.

Isobel only blinked, only that. "No," she said. "I was going to kill him." She was. She had wanted to. All that had stopped her was the thought that Katherine might want him for something, down the track. "Don't look for any redeeming qualities in me. I don't have any."

"But you took a risk with Damon. How did you know that he was gonna give it to me?"

Isobel smiled. Why not throw a cat among the pigeons? This improbable web that was Mystic Falls; fun to destroy, and maybe she'd check in, later, see how it was rebuilding itself. "Because he's in love with you," she said, with almost no cadence to her tone.

Elena paused, her mouth quivering. "Thank you," she said. Her voice cracked over the syllables.

"For what?"

"For being such a monumental disappointment. It keeps the memory of my real mother perfectly intact."

Isobel smiled, at that, and took a step closer. "Goodbye, Elena," she said. And like a curse, she added, "as long as you have a Salvatore on each arm, you're doomed. Katherine was smart. She got out. But we all know that you're not Katherine."

* * *

It was almost time to leave Mystic Falls in her rear view mirror and never, ever return. Still, Isobel saw Alaric's face every time she closed her eyes.

_No switch._

But there had to be a way to close the door against those haunted eyes.

Once the car was packed up and they were ready to leave, Isobel went to the high school. She followed Alaric's scent and waited until he left his classroom. He strode down the hall, determined, and then paused, almost stumbling, to turn and face her. Perhaps he had recognized her perfume.

His eyes were wide and sad, where they should have been fearful, and his hands balled reflexively into fists at his sides.

"What do you want?"

Isobel took several steps forward. "I totally get it, you, here, as a history teacher. It's good." She smiled because she owed him a smile and because in hurting the people Elena cared about, some still-human part of Isobel was clawing to do something good.

It was a part Isobel hated, but it was there, and very real, and right now, it was also _loud_.

Scenes flashed through her mind, unbidden and unwelcome; Sunday morning breakfasts in bed. The night Alaric serenaded her and asked her to give them a try. The way he had forgiven her, twice, for accusing him of acts of violence, when all he'd ever wanted was a life with her. She sent up a silent apology for the child they had made, who had never had a chance to breathe life, and for every lie that had ever been said between them.

Alaric shook his head, as Isobel stood smiling at him. So much to say, and neither could speak, until Alaric did, at last.

"What the hell are you doing? You act like you don't care, and yet you're here, hunting me down." Sad, again sad.

Isobel nodded. "I'm leaving. I just thought I'd say goodbye."

"You didn't bother to the first time, so why now?"

Isobel smiled. Felt the faintest trace of salt burn her eyes. "You hate me. That's good."

Alaric flinched, visibly. Drew his shoulders a little higher. "Does it make it easier for you? I mean, what is the whole point of this exercise?"

"What did you expect? You spent all this time trying to track me down. What did you think you would find?" Some part of Alaric had to have known she had sought out vampires for a reason. The obsession had been all-consuming. Alaric only became angrier.

"The woman who gave me this." He held his hand, and the ring, high. "I mean you act like you don't care, but you cared enough to protect me after you left."

Isobel shrugged. Aiming for nonchalant, and missing, she could tell, by some wide margin. "I was a different person back then."

"Right. And that person… is gone. The woman that I married, the woman I loved, she's just… she's gone." He shook his head. Removed the ring, and threw it at her. "You expect me to believe that?" From his pocket, he drew a sprig of vervain, and cast that on the ground as well.

Isobel narrowed her eyes. "What are you doing?"

Alaric couldn't contain anything a second longer, like a spring breaking past its banks. Hurting so badly. "Well, I'm ring free, I'm vervain free. So, kill me or compel me because I don't believe it. Not for a second."

Tears welled in his eyes, and Isobel knew, suddenly, what she had to do. She threw Alaric against the wall. She tried to ignore the tears that sprang to her own eyes. No switch, _no switch_, but Isobel was a heartless, vicious killer and there Were. No. Tears.

"I wanted this," she promised him. "I needed this." And that's where it should have stopped. But no one, in Isobel's whole life, had known her, really known her, _and_ loved her, except Alaric. No one had wrenched the truth from her so unerringly. And so the words kept coming, forced past cold lips, past a throat closing over sobs. "And I'm going to regret it forever. This was my mistake, not yours."

Alaric's eyes softened, and grew desperate. In the midst of so much horror, he still wanted to fix her. He couldn't. So Isobel fixed Alaric, instead.

Isobel's pupils flared, and Alaric's eyes went wide, and dull, and flat.

"You're not going to remember this." Tears escaped, just one from each eye, as Isobel spoke. "I loved you, I did. And when I think about what I gave up it hurts. But now your heart is free of me."

With that line, she released Alaric. From love and pain and wondering. Released him and entrusted him to Damon's care, or whoever else might be waiting for him. He deserved something beautiful, something whole. Someone real.

"It's easier this way. Goodbye, Ric." She ran a hand over his cheek, one last time. The soft stubble, the strong jaw. So much of what was missing, now she had what she'd thought she'd always wanted, from the summers spent with John Gilbert to the moment everything had changed forever.

Isobel slipped Alaric's ring back onto his finger, and disappeared.

* * *

Isobel put the device, and John's confiscated ring, into an envelope, and had Frank drop it on the Gilbert doorstep. When Cherie had driven them all a few blocks away, she called.

"Don't screw this up, John," she instructed, as Mystic Falls became just Virginia.

"I won't."

"You'd better not. Katherine wants all of those tomb vampires dead, and I want to add two more to that list."

John sounded unsurprised, but this had been unspoken between them since the plan had been hatched. "Let me guess."

Isobel paused. The scent of Alaric's pain still clung to her hair. "I don't want this life for her."

Or Alaric, damn him.

Isobel ended the call.

One last stop, in the Grove Hill cemetery, as the sun was rising. Isobel wanted to see her grave. She had learned some time back that it existed, and loved the idea. Because a part of her _was_ dead. Maybe the part that her parents and sisters visited really was here, in a way.

"You got your wish," she said to the headstone. "You stupid, stupid girl."

Speaking was good. You needed to breathe to speak. Breathing made Isobel feel real. The moments when Isobel woke and realized how still she was were the moments she most hated what she had become – and after this little trip into memory and self-loathing, Isobel tasted her death more than ever. And heartbeat or no, talking and doing things and fucking and drinking and stealing, vampires were dead, in a way.

Isobel reminded herself, face twisting, that she loved being a vampire. And then she crossed her arms tight over her chest. Tears gathered, treacherous armies, and began to fall. They made her want to claw her eyes out. Instead she crouched at the grave, for a long moment, and let her tears soak into the earth. There was a tired-looking bunch of flowers pressed close to the stone, wilted by the sun. Pathetic.

Fuck.

When Isobel could stand again, she did, and hit the road once more. Cherie and Frank were drained at last and disposed of just past the border into Tennessee, and Isobel found a new car.

For the third time in her life Isobel swore she would never set foot in Mystic Falls again; but like all the promises she had ever made, to herself or to someone else, it sounded hollow. She wondered how long she had before fate dragged her back, and made a better decision.

Time to kick fate back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter summary:**

Isobel's side of season 2, episode 17: _Know thy enemy_, and the hidden events between Isobel and certain powerful forces.

**Pairings**: Stefan/Elena, implied Damon/Alaric.

**Warnings**: Canonical character death.

* * *

Dialogue from the show is the property of the writers and the CW.

Isobel had Frank's money – quite a bit of it, and all cash, so she paid for a motel room for a couple of nights and sat down to think, next steps, all of that.

Isobel placed calls to Katherine's spies in Mystic Falls, and what she learned made her want to smash all of the windows in the hotel room and break necks and cry and go straight back to Mystic Falls, crawl into Alaric's bed. Let him hold her forever, let him drag her back years, to before she had made all of her biggest mistakes.

The Salvatores were alive and well and walking around town like the victors of the piece.

Isobel paced, there in the hotel room, like a caged lion. Furious and frantic and breathing heavily. Every nerve ending on fire. And actually, fuck the windows; Isobel punched into the heavy glass and then again, on the other side of the centre frame, feeling the glass slice clean into her hand, into her arm, wishing it wouldn't heal so quickly afterward. She swept a lamp off the side table and enjoyed the crash it made against the wall. Pulled the phone from its socket, and threw it out of the window. Upturned the mattress. Kicked the nightstand into splinters.

There was a shout, and a knock on the door. Isobel opened it. The manager, or something, by his suit, she thought. She pulled him into the room, her face changing, and tore into his throat. Too fast for him to scream.

When the man was dead, Isobel calmly packed the rest of her things and left.

On the road, she called Katherine, who was ominously silent. Isobel felt her heart beat sickeningly in her chest. The Salvatores had survived. That didn't mean Katherine didn't know Isobel had tried to have them killed. If she knew, Isobel was dead.

Best to play dumb, then, for all that.

* * *

Durham.

Isobel would have to be careful. Alaric was long gone, but there were dozens of people she could run into, or who could spot her from a distance, cause difficulties. Isobel stayed out of sight until after dark, and returned to her office. It should have been empty. It wasn't.

Vanessa Monroe. Of course Vanessa would be there. Vanessa with her eyes all wide like that, an almost stupid look pasting her intelligent features. "Is… Isobel?"

Isobel smiled. "Stay calm," she said, with a touch of eye flare. "I need your help."

Vanessa nodded. "I'll stay calm. I'll help."

Isobel smiled. The scent of Vanessa's blood, just beneath the surface of her skin, was fresh and healthy, though a touch of wine swirled within; Vanessa had enjoyed a glass before returning to the office, maybe. Briefly, Isobel considered drinking from her.

No. She needed Vanessa sharp.

"The curse of the sun and the moon," she said, stepping deeper into the office. "I need all the materials. All of them."

Vanessa nodded, and stumbled a little as she stepped towards the bookshelf. Irritated, Isobel blurred in front of her, propping her up by the shoulders. "Vanessa," she warned. "I need you sharp."

Vanessa stood a little straighter. "Of course, Is," she said. Her eyes seemed clearer, instantly. She smoothed her hair down, adjusted her shirt.

Isobel didn't know what it was about seeing a compelled human being that made her simultaneously sick and angry. It was so necessary so much of the time, but their submission made her see red, nonetheless. Seeing Alaric helpless under her gaze…

No, because fuck you, Alaric. Fuck you. Isobel let Vanessa cross to the locked case and pull out a box, and a couple of hand-bound books. She laid them out on the table, and Isobel sat down with a familiar legal pad and felt-tipped pen.

"How well do you know these?" Isobel asked, and was gratified to see Vanessa seemed alert; inspired, even.

"By now? Probably as well as you know them," Vanessa answered. "Maybe better." She shrugged, turning pages. "After all, I've been surrounded by them for years. I've kept everything. I always thought someone would show up, one day, looking for them. I didn't think it would be you, though." Vanessa's eyes almost glitter. "So are you…?"

Isobel looked up from the page, and let her vampire features settle over her face. Vanessa cringed, and swallowed, and acted a little like a proper human being for a moment; still she only nodded, and didn't scream, the way she should have.

Isobel gave a moment's serious thought to eating Vanessa and taking all the papers, but she didn't do that. She stretched her spine, tamping down the irritation that flashed through her body. Vanessa should be afraid.

In some ways, Isobel hated compulsion.

"Tell me about the doppelgänger," Isobel said.

Vanessa slipped elegantly into a chair and smoothed her hair back; Isobel was glad. Less like an automaton, now, Vanessa seemed more capable. "Conflicting reports. It's possible the very first one was a witch, although that often meant, back then, that she had attracted the attention of more than one man. Because of course," and at this Vanessa gave a half smile, "the only way to do that is by sorcery."

"But she was special."

Vanessa shrugged. "She might have been. She might have been involved with the magic that originally made vampires."

But that made no sense at all, because vampires surely had to be eternal, old as the earth. "Or…"

Vanessa shrugged again, and cocked her chin in that 'Women's Studies Major' way she sometimes did. "… Or, she might have been a pretty girl who turned one too many heads and got stoned to death or burned at the stake for messing with someone's ideas of how a good girl should behave."

Women's Studies did, occasionally, have a point. Isobel was hard-pressed to recall a single tale of a man who had gone down in history as a villain for dipping his wick one too many times.

"Here," Isobel said. "I need you to help me photocopy everything. Everything in these three books, all the papers. I need it all, but it can't go missing. You understand?"

"Of course," Vanessa said. "I'm still your graduate assistant, right?"

_Are you? I mean, I'm dead, and I really want to drain all the blood from your body, so there's that. _

"Of course," Isobel said. "Now get started. I have to go and get something to eat."

* * *

It did grant a feeling of control. Access to the materials. Perhaps that was the problem. To an academic, chaos is disorganized thinking, ideas without evidence.

The oldest and most powerful vampires in the world, Katherine had said, were after her.

Well, maybe they were, and maybe they weren't, the oldest and most powerful vampires in the world; but Katherine thought they were, and perhaps they did as well. Perhaps there was a curse of the sun and the moon and perhaps there wasn't; but they believed there was one. Perhaps there had been werewolves once; regardless, there weren't any now.

Perhaps Elena was a doppelgänger, and perhaps she was just a genetic throwback, identical to Katherine for the short period of time their apparent ages intersected. What mattered about that was that they would want Elena, and also, that Isobel had a bargaining chip in Katherine.

Katherine, who still wasn't answering her phone.

Isobel concluded, at last, that she had access to the broader range of materials, and the most information, and importantly, she was young, and intelligent, and trained in research. She would be the puppet master. She would stride into the belly of the beast, and save her daughter.

Isobel sorted through the photocopies, organized her thinking rigorously.

It never crossed her mind that the opposite of chaos might not be order, but hubris.

* * *

The chat rooms, again. Isobel logged on as AcaVamp and searched immediately for Bug1974. Two days later, she hadn't heard from him.

AcaVamp:_ Oh, Bug1974… don't make me start posting all the things I know about your life._

AcaVamp: _Bug1974, Have you really forgotten? I know who you are, what you are, what you look like. Where you're at school._

AcaVamp:_ Bug 1974, I will bring down a storm of flaming shit on your head, and I'll enjoy every moment of it. Believe me when I say that I am in a better position to negotiate than you are, right now._

Bug1974:_ Tuesday, 10pm. Same place. Delete this account._

Isobel laughed out loud, deleted the account, and settled in to wait.

Slater was more nervous and hunched over than Isobel remembered, when he slunk into the bar. Isobel watched his wary eyes flicker about the room, his hands slung low in his pocket. Perhaps not the exact same cardigan he'd been wearing last time but one quite a lot like it.

His eyes found her, at last, and with a nod of his head, he indicated that Isobel should join him at a booth.

Coward.

Isobel ordered drinks, tumblers full of tequila, and assured the bartender that they were on the house. She crossed the bar and sat opposite Slater, watching his expression when he realized what was in his glass.

"So I was right," he said. "You wanted to change. And you got what you wanted."

Isobel flashed her sweetest smile, and nodded. "I did. Thanks for your help. Henri was very accommodating."

Slater laughed softly. "Henri didn't do this."

Isobel fought down a flicker of irritation. Lying just came so naturally to her. Amongst this crowd, though, it was too easy to get caught out.

"No, he didn't." Isobel pulled the thick sheath of papers from her bag. "I need your help with something." Post-it notes hung from various pages. "I need -"

"Are you regretting it, yet?"

Slater's eyes were heavy on Isobel's, and Isobel felt a cold thrill of pain, through her heart, into her stomach. "What is there to regret?"

Slater shook his head. "Everything. If you're not there yet, you will be soon." Slater leaned forward on the table, arms crossed. "You know who comes to see me?"

"Oh, god, you're not going to give me some life lesson, are you?" Isobel rolled her eyes, a disgusted look on her face. Slater ignored it.

"People come to me looking for information. Sometimes I can help. Sometimes I can't. I have a reputation for knowing things, and for being able to find people, get information. Mostly, I exist on the web. I'm a hub."

"I imagine that must be a very rewarding and fulfilling life," Isobel said. "Why are you trying to bore me to death?" A vicious curl to her lip which Slater took no notice of.

"When I was turned, I was engaged, and had a baby on the way," Slater said. Eyelids heavy.

"Jesus Christ, you're mundane. You've been studying for over thirty years. And you still regret what you left behind?"

"I didn't leave it behind. It was taken from me," Slater said. "You. You left something behind. What was it?"

Alaric's big dark eyes, the pain in them, overwhelmed Isobel for a long moment, but she sat up straighter, sneered. "What I left behind never even existed. A shell of a girl and a dress-up box. Don't pretend you know me."

Slater shook his head. "You're right. I don't know you. And I don't want to." He sighed. "What do you want?"

Isobel thought hard. The most important things were that she didn't reveal her hand, or say anything that could endanger Elena (this, too, was an irritation. Like every mother who has imagined her daughter in the tutu she herself had been too ungainly to wear, Isobel was plotting out the course of Elena's life and no part of it involved vampires of any kind. She wanted Elena safe, wanted all threats to that eliminated. Beginning with these old, powerful vampires, and Katherine, and ending with the Salvatores). She couldn't reveal that Katherine was back in the picture, either, though for all Isobel knew, Slater was aware of this little tidbit.

Either way, Isobel couldn't reveal that she and Katherine were family, or friends, or knew each other at all.

"The oldest, and most powerful, vampires in the world," Isobel said.

Slater's features didn't change or betray a thing. That was his mistake. If he didn't know what she was talking about, he would have looked confused, or surprised, or curious, the way Isobel imagined a mind so sharp would often be. Instead, Slater kept his eyes settled to dull, his mouth a straight line.

"No idea who they might be. No idea how long our kind has existed."

"You're a goddamn liar and I will ruin your life." Isobel smiled. A secretive smile, knowing. A little cock to her chin. From a distance, she would have appeared to be flirting. "I have information they need. And if you get in the way of me getting that to them – obstruct me in any way – I will make sure they know about it."

"What could you possibly have that they would want to know?"

Isobel sipped at her drink. "I know of a young girl who looks a lot like Katherine Pierce. Uncannily like her."

"You're lying." Slater spoke too quickly, again revealing too much of his hand. "The doppelgänger doesn't exist."

Isobel nodded. "Did I say doppelgänger? How interesting. I could have sworn I said something else."

Slater finished his drink, and called over a waiter, asking for another. "Why are you here?"

"The curse of the sun and the moon."

Slater made a frustrated mumble. "It's all a myth. There are no werewolves."

"Probably. Not your concern."

The key to seeming more knowledgeable than she was, Isobel thought, was to avoid saying too much. Reduce the possibility of making errors. "Klaus, I've never met, or spoken to. Rumor has it he's a hermit. Lives on the fringes."

Just the name gave Isobel a thrill. Klaus. Klaus. Step one.

"It doesn't have to be Klaus." She kept her breathing even, her heart rate steady.

Slater scratched his head. "Elijah… I mean, he's a foot soldier."

Once again containing her excitement, Isobel nodded. "Elijah will do fine. Unless you know…?"

"The others are all dead. Or rumored to be, at least. I don't even know if they can be killed. Not many people even know they exist. I doubt anyone knows everything there is to know about them except, well, them. It's all theories and rumors."

Isobel nodded. "Fine. Elijah will do just fine. How do you get hold of him?"

"I don't," Slater admitted. "He might be just a foot soldier, where Klaus is concerned, but he's still hundreds of steps up the ladder from you and me."

"You are boring the shit out of me, Slater."

He looked less scared than sad. Shook his head. "I put an ad on Craigslist. Someone tells someone, who tells someone, who keeps playing Chinese whispers all the way up the line until someone tells Elijah. And then it all comes back down the line to little old me."

"What sort of information would you even have to pass on?"

Slater shrugged. "Rumors. Juicy ones."

"What's the protocol?"

At this, Slater's face finally hardened. "No," he said. "That? Just, no. I value my life too much to get involved in this. I'd wander into the sun before I told you that."

Isobel settled back against the high-backed booth. "The middle-men. Are they humans, or vampires?"

Slater leaned across the table. "Fuck you," he said, evenly.

Not that it mattered. They were all potential leaks of information. In Isobel's experience, a secret was best kept by exactly one person. Two might manage, if each had sufficient leverage over the other. Three was a dangerous proposition indeed. Chinese whispers? Stupid. Way too big a risk.

"How old are they? Klaus and Elijah?"

Slater shrugged. "I have no idea. Old." He finished his drink. "I'm going. You know…"

Isobel met Slater's eyes.

"I told you this would end badly for you. Now? I guarantee it. If you stop now, you might have some semblance of an un-life. Otherwise…" Slater shrugged. "You've met Henri, you've met me. Whoever made you. So you think vampires lead long lives. Believe me when I tell you, most vampires don't last five years. They make a mistake, piss someone off. For every person like me – a vampire thirty years – there's fifty who didn't make it much more than a year. You stink of death. I hope I never see you again. And if I do – it won't be to surprise you with a birthday cake."

"Empty threat, Slater. Henri told me you don't kill."

"Humans, Isobel. I don't kill humans, not if I can help it. I won't hesitate to kill you, if you give me a reason to."

There was something in his eyes. Some flash of strength. Isobel felt afraid, for a moment. Perhaps she had pushed him a touch too far. Into the box Isobel went; pulled out charming, pulled out confident. "You've been very helpful," she promised Slater. "Perhaps when we see each other again you will have changed your mind about me."

The look on Slater's face wasn't quite revulsion, but it wasn't quite not that either. He stood and pulled his cardigan a little closer around his body. A gesture perhaps intended to make him seem more human.

For a vampire, he did seem remarkably human. Isobel made a sheepish promise to herself to leave him out of it, from now on. She even convinced herself it was for Slater's sake, and not her own. A threat from someone so weak couldn't possibly worry a Bulgarian woman. Certainly not a Bulgarian vampire, not a Petrova.

Unbidden, the sweet face of Aunt Gen appeared in Isobel's mind.

_Tragedy follows us no matter where we go. Maybe even worse, for you, darling Isobel. You were born on a Wednesday. Full of woe._

For a brief moment, Isobel missed Aunt Gen, and wondered if she was still alive, somewhere. Maybe she'd find out, when all of this was over. She would show Genevieve the Real Isobel Flemming.

Perhaps.

Isobel left a hefty tip – why, she wasn't sure – and left the bar with a sense of unease she could not quite shake.

* * *

And yes. Isobel was quite sure she was right, about a number of things.

Vampires could live a long time, sure, but that was countered by the fact that there was often something around that wanted them dead – another vampire, perhaps angered by encroachment on their territory, or a human who knew more than most humans did. Slater was no doubt right about that. So to live a long time, there were a number of necessary steps to take. Isobel thought about Katherine, about Henri.

The first thing, obviously, was too keep a low profile. Katherine had never said it directly, but she had been running from Klaus and Elijah for five centuries, give or take; and the definition of 'low profile' had changed, in that time. Katherine had initially been careful about disposing of her victims so as not to leave a helpful trail of bodies to wherever she was hiding. These days, she was triply careful. She killed less often. Had a passable knowledge of forensics and was much more cautious about disposing of dead bodies. Isobel thought about the lengths Katherine went to, to avoid surveillance cameras, police photographers. Contact with cameras of any kind, really, since the internet allowed for sharing of images, and facial recognition improved by the day.

Katherine trusted almost no one and would never let an extra link exist in any chain that mattered to her. A small number of compelled humans – useful, to be sure, but not to be trusted, since they were hopeless at improvisation – playing amateur spy around the place.

But to trust a string of people – humans _or_ vampires – to keep the secret of her existence safe? No way in hell.

By extension, the oldest and most powerful vampires in the world would be far more careful than even Katherine.

Most likely Elijah, but perhaps Klaus; one of them had a very close eye on Craigslist.

Fuck the protocol. If AcaVamp had found Slater more than once, a well-worded ad under missed connections would certainly net Isobel Flemming an old, old vampire or two.

...

**I found KP**

_I know you are looking for the girl who looks like her. But since the dog breed you were interested in doesn't exist any more, perhaps you'd be interested in the real thing?_

• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

...

Isobel spent days reading through the research materials she had accumulated and checking the dummy email account she had set up about every twelve seconds. Remembering she had to lie low, she ate only what she had to, and didn't kill anyone. She stalked through the apartment she was living in and drank altogether too much alcohol, wishing it was possible to really get drunk.

On the fifth night, when she snuck from the apartment to feed, Isobel had travelled less than half a block when a terrible pain came over her. Her head felt like it might explode. Vampires don't get sick, she told herself, trying to stay upright, but unconsciousness sounded like a better plan, so she slumped to the ground, and let the world go black.

* * *

When Isobel woke, it was to disorientation and fear.

She was on the ground, in a richly decorated room, she saw, when her eyes opened. She expected terrible pain, but there was none. As she sat up, a hospital blood bag hit the ground in front of her.

She lifted it by one corner, and inspected it, suspiciously, before looking up.

The man sitting on the elegant chaise lounge in front of her could only be described as cherubic. From the elegant bow of his lips, his laughing eyes, and his wicked smile, to the lazy grace of his relaxed recline. His hair was a sort of strawberry blond.

"Hello, sweetheart," he said, and there was laughter in his voice, in his lilting British accent. "Sorry about the dramatics. You can never be too careful."

Despite herself, Isobel felt her lip curl into a smile, and she bit into the blood bag. She drained it quickly.

"I love the Internet," the man said. "You can find anything. Literally anything. Cats that look like Hitler. Have you seen that site? Good for a laugh," he said, and his smile grew broader. "Doppelgängers who are supposed to be long dead. Academics who know a little too much."

"Are you… Elijah?"

He shook his head. "No. Elijah and I had a disagreement, of sorts. A falling out, you'd say. I haven't seen him in years." He stood slowly. "Niklaus," he said, reaching to help Isobel to her feet. "You can call me Klaus. I've been going by that for a little while now. Got to keep things interesting, you know, so I change things up from time to time. For now; Klaus."

Isobel took his hand, and got to her feet. Strangely relieved. There was no malice in his tone; perhaps he hated Katherine, wanted her dead, but he seemed to like Isobel well enough. She wondered absently if they would sleep together.

"At present, my brother is in Mystic Falls, making my life difficult. Take a seat," he said.

Isobel sat.

"On the lounge, there's a good girl."

Isobel realized she had sat back on the ground, and felt a faint thrill of fear. "That was strange," she said. "Perhaps my head's still…"

Klaus threw his head back, and laughed. "Your head is fine, sweetheart. My family and I… we can compel other vampires. Think of that as a little display of power. See, I think we can work together. And I think the negotiations will go better if you know I could tell you to rip out your own heart, and you would have no choice but to do it."

The fear was less faint, then.

"You can… compel me? Compel a vampire?"

"We were the first of our kind," he said, nodding, as Isobel settled onto the lounge beside him, and submitted to having her hair tucked behind her ear. "A thousand years ago."

Okay, a miscalculation. A massive fucking miscalculation, maybe. Isobel realized she was shaking, a little.

"Do calm down, Isobel," Klaus said. A touch of eye-flare. "We haven't even started to negotiate. I have no wish to kill you."

Isobel calmed instantly.

"I know where Katherine is," Isobel blurted. "I know you want her. I… contacted you to extend the hand of cooperation. I can help you to get to her."

Klaus nodded. "Good girl. I like you. Very much. You will tell me the truth, in all things." The eye-flare, again. "Don't worry, you can trust me." He winked.

Isobel found herself desperately wanting to trust him; needing to, she supposed, since she had offered herself up on a platter. He was so sincere, and so damn pretty. A hermit, she had imagined, would be a bearded, unkempt monster, smelling like the blood of animals, hiding in a shack.

_Fuck_, she thought. _You are so fucking stupid_. Hubris. Pure hubris. How she could ever have thought she had all the information? Compared to a millennium of being a vampire, five centuries chasing Katerina Petrova?

Isobel felt physically sick, but she straightened her spine, cocked her chin.

"Do you want Katherine, or not?"

"I certainly do. I can't wait to see her. I've missed her. See, she took something from me. Something I don't intend to lose a second time. But I also want to hear a little about your daughter. I hear they have a lot in common."

Isobel swallowed. "There's a similarity."

Klaus leaned toward Isobel. "Your daughter is the doppelgänger. True?"

"Yes," Isobel blurted. Damn that compulsion. There should have been something. Something written somewhere. Her research materials came from all over the globe. Someone should have known. Someone should have written that down, somewhere. _There are thousand year old vampires, and they can compel other vampires, and maybe they can be trusted and maybe they can't but you won't have a choice_. It should say that somewhere.

Klaus nodded. "I am so pleased to have met you," he said. He had a lisp which made him sound safer, somehow, but Isobel didn't feel safe. She felt cold. "I think we'll work well together."

Like a lawyer, or a scoundrel, his lips dripped honey Isobel couldn't help but want to lick up. She hoped they were not poison.

"You want to break the curse so the wolves can't, right?"

Klaus chuckled, and climbed to his feet, and crossed the room until he was gazing out the window. "Rumor has it," he said.

"But there are no werewolves. Not any more."

"If you say so, sweetheart."

"What do you want with my daughter?"

Klaus shrugged. "If it turned out there were werewolves still in this world I would want her to help me to break the curse."

"What would you need from her?"

"Blood," Klaus said easily. "Just some of her blood."

"Some."

"That's what I said." He grinned, widely. "So, now. What say we have a bit of a natter, eh? Work out some sort of a plan to get us both what we want?" He gave a reassuring nod. "Tell me what you want."

"I want my daughter safe. I want her away from vampires. I want her never to be what I am."

Klaus crossed the room, and cupped Isobel's face in his hands. He leaned to kiss her forehead. "I promise I will do everything in my power to ensure your daughter never becomes a vampire. Okay, sweetheart? And when I'm done breaking the curse, she will never again so much as see another vampire. Ever."

After a long, calming breath, Isobel nodded.

Klaus crouched in front of her. "There _are_ werewolves. Hundreds of them. The bloodlines run through families all over the continent. And all over the world. I need to draw blood from a werewolf and a vampire to break the curse. What do you say you and I make damn sure the vampire I draw blood from is Katerina Petrova?"

Maybe Katherine was family. Maybe she was all that Isobel had left, in the world, but somehow, in the face of all that had happened, and all that might, Isobel found she didn't much care. Isobel's heart was the heart of the sixteen year old girl who had carried Elena, and given birth to her, and entrusted her to the care of the Gilberts.

Isobel nodded slowly.

Klaus smiled. "Then let's get a pot of tea on, and start nutting out the details, shall we?"

* * *

On Klaus's orders, Isobel made several more attempts to contact Katherine, over the next few days, and almost cried with relief when Katherine finally picked up the phone.

"Things are heating up in Mystic Falls, granddaughter."

Isobel forced herself to laugh. "I bet they are. Are you there yet?"

"I am. Safe here, for now. Elijah is out for the count and there is _no_ sign of Klaus. They say his name like he's the boogeyman. But before my Salvatores put Elijah down, he told them Klaus is a total recluse. Not coming out into the open without a whole lot of information he has no way of getting."

Isobel felt Klaus's silent chuckle. Some vibration on the air. "I need to see you, Katherine."

"Of course. Are you coming here?"

"I am."

Katherine paused. "Don't keep me in suspense."

Isobel paused. "I have to. There are rumors everywhere," she said. As she said it, she met Klaus's eyes, there on the couch with a woman splayed across his lap. He had been feeding from her. He was focused on Isobel now but his eyes were still red-black and vicious. He was smiling, fangs out and coated in blood. He gave a wink, and Isobel had to look away. "About a doppelgänger. I can't talk on the phone. I promise I have good news."

"Don't try to tell me you found…"

"Klaus? Not exactly."

Katherine couldn't disguise the interest in her voice. "Well, don't wait," she said. "Call me when you're here."

"Wait, Katherine…" Isobel turned to Klaus, and met his eyes again. as she spoke. "I need you to work on something, in the meantime."

"I'm listening."

"We're going to need a werewolf."

Katherine was silent. "There's no -"

"There are werewolves. And I think you know it."

"What are you cooking up?"

"You'll know soon enough."

Katherine was silent a long time. Isobel could have sworn she heard Katherine chewing on her lip. "Well…"

Isobel waited.

Eventually, Katherine sighed. "So if I told you there's a werewolf or two around Mystic Falls right now…?"

Klaus smiled widely, able, as he was, to hear both sides of the conversation. He shook his head briefly and gave Isobel an impressed cock of his chin.

"That is excellent news, Katherine. And one last thing…"

"The moonstone won't be a problem," Katherine promised. "You are such a Petrova. I mean, really."

"I'll see you soon," Isobel sang, and disconnected the call.

"Good girl," Klaus said, as he pushed the lifeless body from his lap. "That will save me some time. I think you have another call to make."

Much more confident about her ability to lie to John, Isobel placed the call. She settled her features to serious, knowing he would hear the expression in her tone.

"John," she said. He waited a long time to speak.

"I did what I could, Isobel," he said. "Thanks to your husband, and that little Bennett witch…"

"No, no," Isobel said. "Calm down. As it happens, we might need the Salvatores anyway. Elena is in terrible danger."

Klaus looked curious.

Isobel was learning about the other side of compulsion on a very steep learning curve. And compulsion, she was learning, was a tricky thing.

As long as she did what Klaus said, she had a degree of freedom around that; as long as she didn't directly act against him, there were actions she could take, things she could say, that forwarded her own agenda.

Isobel's agenda, at this point, was focused on only one goal; Elena's safety. Isobel wanted to get something right, with whatever remained of her afterlife; do one last decent thing. She was hoping Klaus was telling the truth about what he needed from her; but just in case, she was being cautious. She wanted safety nets.

"What are you talking about, Isobel?"

Isobel breathed, and remained calm. "I've made contact with someone who is in contact with Klaus. I'm negotiating a deal to keep Elena safe. Swapping her for Katherine."

"Jesus, Isobel…" She could hear him run a hand through her hair. "Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

Isobel laughed. "I do. Klaus is too arrogant to suspect anyone would act against him."

On the lounge, Klaus chuckled silently, shaking his head.

"Meet me in Mystic Falls," Isobel said, cocking her head. "In say, four…" Klaus held up two fingers. "In two days. Think you can do that? Without telling the Salvatores, or Elena, that I'm on my way?"

"Don't patronize me, Isobel," John said. "I'm already here. Well, close." Isobel hesitated, and turned a little away from Klaus. Illusory, of course; his senses were too sharp to miss anything. "How is…" Isobel swallowed. "How's Ric?"

John laughed. "You almost sound as if you care."

Isobel fought to answer; _I do care, _perhaps, or_ I don't care in the slightest_. She said neither. "Whatever."

"He's dating Jenna Sommers. Elena's Aunt. They seem to be very happy together."

It should not have felt so much like a knife in the gut, or perhaps it was good. What it meant for Damon Isobel couldn't guess. "Eugh," she said. "How… sanitary."

"You don't know Jenna. She's a good person and she's doing her best to raise our daughter. And you half-destroyed Ric, Isobel. Perhaps you could be happy for him. Call me well before you hit the city limits." John hung up.

Isobel blinked back confusion and rage and a little touch of sadness as well.

"And who, pray tell, is Ric?" came a too-curious voice from the chaise.

"Not a part of this," Isobel said, unthinking.

Klaus shot across the room and pressed Isobel into the wall, a hand curved tight against her throat. "I asked you a question," he said, and his eyes flickered. Isobel pulled helplessly against his fingers.

"My husband," she admitted, when Klaus had let her fall to the floor, and the bruising on her throat had healed, and she could speak again.

"Husband. And he lives in Mystic Falls?"

"Please don't -"

"Hush, Isobel. Don't beg. It doesn't suit you at all. Tell me about your husband. Why is he in Mystic Falls?"

The workaround for a question is you don't say more than you have to, though you never know, really, how much you will be expected to spill, how far you will be pushed.

"He's the history teacher at the high school."

"Ah. That's his job. Why is he there?"

Isobel's heart sank. "He went there looking for Damon Salvatore, who turned me."

Klaus grinned, and yanked her up by the arm. "Is he a sort?"

_A sort?_ Weird British expression, Isobel assumed, and frowned.

"Fanciable. Good-looking."

Isobel nodded, her blood turning to ice. "He is."

Klaus nodded slowly. "Trusted? By your daughter, by the Salvatores?"

Isobel blinked back further tears; this was never intended to be a part of it. Never. Not Alaric. Whatever Klaus had planned for him, it couldn't be good.

"Please, Klaus…" Klaus only smiled. "Yes. He's trusted. Don't hurt him."

"Well, if I hurt him, he won't be much use to me. No. But I will need you to hand him over to Maddox for me."

From the corner of the room, the burly warlock raised his head from his notes.

* * *

That night, in the sumptuous guest room, Isobel cried until she couldn't think or see any more, and then snapped out of it.

There were a number of problems. Some harder than others to cope with. For all Isobel knew, Katherine knew Isobel had betrayed her, and the Salvatores, and Isobel would be dead at Katherine's hands as soon as they laid eyes on one another. Though Katherine hadn't sounded angry or suspicious on the phone; quite the contrary. She'd sounded pleased, that her granddaughter, every inch the Petrova, had apparently made excellent progress on her behalf.

Soon she would know what 'every inch the Petrova' really meant. She shouldn't have forgotten in the first place.

And maybe it was best the Salvatores had survived, as they had. If the worst should occur, they would take Elena away from Mystic Falls. Protect her.

Alaric, she probably couldn't help. Klaus's assurances that Alaric wouldn't be hurt were not particularly reassuring. He was very careful with his words.

Isobel bowed her head, and retreated to the bed, and slept until the sun came up.

* * *

In the morning, Maddox opened the door to Isobel's room, and led her back to the luxurious parlor.

"We won't have any problems, will we, sweetheart?" Klaus said, grinning.

"Of course not. I only want my daughter safe. And Alaric unhurt." Isobel nodded earnestly.

Klaus nodded, slow and deliberate. "Look at me," he said. Isobel did. "Anything Maddox tells you to do, you will do."

Isobel nodded. "I will," she said.

"I need you to make this work. So I'm giving you a reasonable amount of autonomy. You need to be able to improvise, think on your feet."

"I appreciate it." This was true. If Isobel was to fight the compulsion, work around it as needed, she would need all the space she could get. "I won't let you down."

"You're damned right, you won't, sweetheart." Klaus grinned. The grin looked nothing like a smile.

Isobel swallowed, hard. "Where will you be?"

"Not far away. Once Maddox has finished his work, I'll be in Mystic Falls."

Isobel nodded, and turned to Maddox. "Shall we go?"

Klaus interrupted. "No. You'll leave tomorrow. This is where you and I say goodbye, love. I have other tasks to attend to." He grinned. "Stick her back in her room, would you, Maddox? There's a love."

"No," Isobel protested. "Why -"

"Because I said so, darling," and there was more than warning in the tone. His smiled dropped, from his eyes as well. "Maddox and I have business. Tomorrow, you leave."

Isobel wasn't sure how she hadn't seen it the moment before; the threat in the set of his jaw, in the muscles rippling across his arms, his shoulders. His eyes were suddenly cold and glittering and dangerous, and Isobel felt cold.

"I'm…" She shifted from foot to foot. "I'm sorry."

Klaus paused a moment, and nodded, and smiled a touch.

"Katherine is of no practical use to me, you know. I could use any vampire in the ritual and Mystic Falls is crawling with them. My interest in her is purely vengeance for vengeance's sake."

Isobel nodded, swallowing.

"You are worried that I'll kill her."

Isobel opened her mouth to speak, and hesitated. Worried wasn't the word; truly, Isobel would be safer with Katherine dead. Elena, too. And it was hard to know whether Klaus was issuing a threat, or dangling a favor. "Are you saying you don't want to kill her?"

Klaus smiled again. "She ran from me for five centuries," he said. "I intend to keep her alive for at least that long." He took a threatening step forward, and the smile dropped again. "If you make some attempt to betray me – try to work around my compulsion, to subvert the overall plot – you will share a cell with her, for the next five centuries. How soon 'til we have jet-packs and flying cars, d'you think?"

Isobel felt a chill. "You don't need to worry about me," she said.

"Katherine must never know that you and I have met."

Isobel nodded.

"Then go have fun, Isobel," he grinned, and Isobel tried not to think of crocodiles and hyenas.

* * *

Isobel climbed into the passenger seat of a car expressly stolen for these purposes. Maddox drove. It took all day to get to Mystic Falls. Isobel called John at the last possible moment, just so he remembered who was in charge, and then had Maddox take her to the Gilbert house. Why not throw a cat amongst the pigeons?

Isobel knocked on the door.

Jenna Sommers had a sweet face and big eyes, a wide smile. Isobel wanted to see her broken.

"Hi," she said. "You must be Jenna." The smile remained, unabated. Elena stepped into sight, a terrible expression on her face. Isobel nodded once. "I'm... Elena's mother."

Ah, there it was; Jenna looked like she had been stabbed, eyes going watery, smile gone. Quite broken. Isobel felt something vicious uncurl in her chest.

Elena made a sound like a bull preparing to charge. "Isobel," she said, and must have immediately regretted it, because the betrayal on Jenna's face was turned on her, then. Isobel remained focused on Jenna.

"You must be the woman who's dating my husband," she said, guileless.

Elena stepped forward to push the door shut. Well, Isobel hadn't expected a warm welcome. She thought for a moment about standing on the porch for a while, listening to the aftermath; but she had other things to do.

Maddox drove her to the same house as last time – still the nicest foreclosure in a town where anyone who could afford to buy a place so beautiful already had one.

* * *

Back at the Gilbert house, this time with John. He had uttered a few empty threats about what he would do if Isobel was trying to play him, but in the end, had been convinced that Isobel was indeed acting in Elena's best interests. Isobel was looking forward to seeing Elena's face when she discovered they were working together again.

And then she just felt tired. Like a mother losing a daughter. She steeled herself to be Isobel Flemming, badass vampire.

Elena was, angry, furious, hands curled into fists. Stefan, standing beside her, looked prepared to listen. To his credit, Isobel thought. No doubt he was prepared to listen to anyone who had an idea about protecting Elena.

Isobel took a breath, and settled her features into a mask of 'concerned parent'. "I asked John for a do-over."

Elena's eyes were narrowed on John. Ooh, the hate. Definitely a touch of the Petrova fire in there. Good. Elena would need it to survive. "You invited her in?" she asked her father, her uncle, who she clearly despised.

John nodded. "She has information about Klaus. Please, just listen to her, ok?"

Elena was stubborn as all fuck perhaps and a Petrova but at least she had a sensible boyfriend, in Stefan Salvatore. She looked to him now. "All right," he said. "What do you know?"

Settled in the kitchen, but no less tense for the change in setting, John and Isobel convinced Elena – or at least, seemed to convince Stefan, that they were acting in Elena's best interests. Isobel found herself rationing her words; there were three different versions of the plan by now and she couldn't trip up on any of them.

And Jesus, this house. Isobel suspected that not a single vampire existed in Mystic Falls who hadn't been in here. Katherine. Elijah. The Salvatores, she could do nothing about.

Still. If they weren't going anywhere, at least Isobel could use them. The lie was an inspired one. "I have a safe house that I can take you to. The deed is in your name. No vampires can get in without your permission, not even me." Isobel's face betrayed nothing. "Let me help you."

Stefan twitched, minutely, and Isobel knew she had won. Probably, the Salvatores would have signed the boarding house over to Elena by the end of the day. Isobel felt a small pang of jealousy; how wonderful it must be, to be loved so completely, by a man who would do anything at all for you.

And then she remembered Alaric, and had to harden her heart against the thought.

Elena stood, eyes burning bright with hate. "You wanna help?" she asked. "Then get the hell out of my house." She stormed from the room.

Out on the street, John ran a nervous hand through his hair. "That couldn't have gone any worse," he muttered.

"Au contraire, John. Don't worry."

John paced, two steps in one direction, two steps back. "Were we in the same conversation?"

"No," Isobel said plainly. "Don't ever assume you know my whole plan." She smoothed John's sleeves down. "You won't see me, now, for a little while. Don't call me. If I need you, I'll call you." The way John flinched under her touch made Isobel smile. "Now, go."

"Isobel…"

Isobel waited.

"Can I even trust you? Are you really fighting for Elena here?"

"Elena is the only person I care about in this whole sorry mess."

The way it spilled from her lips shocked Isobel. True, and fervently meant, but she sounded fierce, like…

Like a mother.

John seemed to consider her face a moment. "There's a plan," he said.

Isobel nodded. "Of course there's a plan. What -"

John dropped his voice low, quiet. "Not just to save Elena. To kill Klaus."

"Stop," Isobel said, heart thumping in her chest.

John blinked. "Is -"

"I mean it. The plan. Don't tell me any details. Just tell me it can work."

"I don't know the whole…"

"Just tell me it will work."

John nodded. "There's still a lot to work out. But…"

Isobel placed a finger to John's lips. "I have to find a way to take myself out of the equation," she said, and again it was a shock. "I'm doing alright now but there will come a time soon when…"

Oh, Jesus Christ. Tears. John's face softened. Isobel blinked them away.

"I'll be a liability, soon. Swear to me." She swallowed, hard. "Keep her alive."

Slowly, and with something like awe on his face, John nodded, and in his face, Isobel saw traces of the boy she once knew. And without knowing why, she kissed him. It was much like their very first kiss, out near the falls, twenty – really? Twenty? Years ago. A tony touch of his childish optimism. He took her hand, for a brief moment, held it tight. His ring bit into her skin.

"I'll do it," he promised. "Whatever I have to do."

"Don't call," Isobel said, and John finally understood it was for Elena.

Isobel blurred three blocks to the point where Maddox had parked the car. She climbed into the back seat and set her features back to Callous Vampire Bitch.

This was it, of course, the final mask. The last outfit Isobel would ever need.

Sitting in the back seat and watching Mystic Falls go by, trying to ignore the still-persistent smell of the paper mill, Isobel catalogued every face she had ever worn. The little girl in the fox stole and the costume pearls. She had thought for two years now that her vampire face was the real face. The only real face she'd ever had. But no.

So many years spent running from it, denying it, lying about it, and it was the only thing she had left. She was a mother. That was the real Isobel.

Maddox adjusted the rear view mirror, and caught Isobel's eyes.

"You had better not have done anything stupid," he said. It was always a shock to hear Maddox's booming voice; he spoke so infrequently.

"Klaus and I have a deal," Isobel said, watching the scenery.

Maddox paused, nodded, and drove back to the house.

* * *

Isobel strode confidently into the house, letting Maddox open and close the door for her, and ignoring the tension in his hulking frame. He hated it when she acted as though he was her servant; which was exactly why she did it.

"_Merci, mon cheri_," she said, slipping a wine bottle out of her bag and setting it on the sideboard. Katherine was here. That perfume, or some disturbance in the air, alerted Isobel at once. She spun on her heel, launching across the room, and threw Katherine against the wall.

Katherine, of course, much older and much stronger, gained the advantage at once, reversing their positions and grabbing Isobel's throat. Isobel took a moment to assess the situation.

Shit. Shit. Katherine knew.

But, no. Katherine's eyes were sparkling, and she was smiling. No more murderous than usual.

"Nice house," she said, easing up on Isobel's throat.

"Nicest foreclosure in town," Isobel agreed, laughing "Come here." They embraced, then, laughing, the Petrova women, one traitor and one devious bitch; and who could say, really, which was which? "It's good to see you, Katherine."

Katherine smiled even wider. "I hear you've been busy."

Isobel nodded. "Yes, I have. I've been busy making a deal with Klaus to save your life." She retrieved the bottle and passed it to Katherine. "Here," she said. "A vintner I knew in Avignon." Sounded more impressive to her ear than 'a townie I decided not to kill this afternoon.'

Katherine open the bottle, and touched her finger to the cork, for a taste. "Hmm. He's tasty."

Whatever.

Isobel collected wine glasses, and settled onto the couch while Katherine poured them each a meal. Mask firmly settled into place.

"So what was with the surprise visit to the Gilbert house?"

Isobel shrugged, and made a petulant face. "John told me Ric was dating auntie vanilla. I got jealous."

Katherine seemed impressed. "You've obviously got John wrapped around your finger, if he invited you into the house."

This, Isobel knew, was when it would get difficult. The deception. She concentrated on a steady heart rate, and breathed only as much as she needed to for speech. "He thinks I'm helping him protect Elena, so he's been very useful in keeping me informed on everything that's been going on."

Katherine sipped at her glass. "So tell me what you know."

Isobel nodded. "You were right. I couldn't get anywhere near Klaus, but I found my way to someone in his trusted circle. One of his witches." She threw a patronizing glance toward the entryway, where she knew Maddox could here her every word, from his place by the front window. He narrowed his eyes at Isobel. Sneered a little.

Katherine shuddered. "Klaus and his witches."

Isobel leaned in, conspiratorial. "He said that Klaus is willing to grant you your freedom if we deliver the moonstone and the doppelgänger."

"I can get the moonstone." Katherine's eyes glittered.

Isobel raised an eyebrow. "You know, Katherine, you'd be betraying your Salvatore boys again." It was impossible to guess how much Katherine even cared. On balance, Isobel thought she probably wanted Stefan back. But she wouldn't risk a chance at her own freedom for him.

For anyone.

What a way to live.

Katherine shrugged. "I was more than willing to play it their way if I had to, but they're floundering. Their witch has lost her powers, and they've used their only weapon to kill Elijah. If I stick with them, I'm dead. You showing up changes everything." She smiled, wicked, seductive.

_Grandmother, what big teeth you have._

They spoke a while longer, plotting and scheming, and Katherine kissed the corner of Isobel's mouth before she left.

With Katherine gone, Isobel sat on the sofa for a long time, thinking about her. Five centuries like this; running and hiding, plotting plots. She didn't get to enjoy herself, much.

Isobel drew her legs up onto the sofa.

Maddox leaned against the door-jamb. "She's an inspiration, your _grandmother_," he sneered.

"Fuck you," Isobel spat. "Don't we have some work to do?"

Maddox nodded. "Tomorrow." He crossed his arms. "Looking forward to betraying your husband?"

"I like you better when you're silent and broody," Isobel said, and taking the bottle of blood and her glass, went to be elsewhere; anywhere she couldn't feel the arrogant bastard's eyes on her.

Like he was any better.

There could be no happy ending to any of this, Isobel thought, and wondered about the moments when she could have made better choices; starting, of course, with knocking on Damon Salvatore's door and offering herself up, begging him to turn her, and finishing with seeking out Klaus.

What a monstrous, monstrous fuck-up. And soon, she would compound her crimes by – yes – betraying Alaric.

Alaric would die. Isobel was sure of it. She let the tears build up and trickle down her face. Let herself indulge in a mental flip-through of a photo album, all their best moments, and then willed herself to hate him for every last one of them.

_No switch._

Her final face, her true face. The face of a mother.

Yes. Isobel had to take herself out of the equation.

* * *

Alaric was easy to find. His truck, so easy to identify. His habits, all too predictable. He crossed the parking lot by the tiny shopping strip, a little hunched, a little rumpled looking, and every inch Alaric.

Perhaps he was dating Jenna. But he stilled smelled like Damon.

Maddox was hidden just out of sight, though Isobel almost thought she could feel his gaze; weighing on her, a real thing. Perhaps it was. He had so much power it made Isobel's teeth ache.

Alaric ran a hand through his hair, and fumbled in his pocket for the car key. Not looking around. When Isobel spoke, he startled.

"Hi, Ric," she said, nodding.

Alaric was so brave. He should have been afraid. He looked bitter, only that, from where Isobel stood; and this was a face Isobel knew well. He had been a sweet boy, once.

Alaric narrowed his eyes. "Isobel. What do you want?"

Isobel shrugged. "Just cleaning up some loose ends."

Alaric returned to trying to get the key into the lock. Something – anger – was making him fumble it. Alcohol, perhaps, too; not now, but he had drunk heavily the previous night. He shook his head. "Yeah, well, we don't have any loose ends."

"You may not. I do. I need to apologize to you."

Alaric visibly flinched. "It's a little late for that."

"No, not for what I've done in the past." After all; apologize for what? Where could she possible start? A laundry list of crimes. No point. "We're beyond that. Although I am sorry for outing you to your girlfriend. That was petty of me." Isobel nodded, just a rueful little jerk of the head.

"Look, whatever jacked-up vampire amends that you're trying to make with me right now, I'm not interested," Alaric said.

Isobel tucked her hair behind her ear, and prepared to say the closest thing to goodbye that she possibly could. "Of course not, because I compelled you to let me go. I realize that I don't wanna do what I have to do without you knowing how much I loved you. And I did. I loved you so much."

Grief racked Alaric's face, but only for a moment; and why? The declaration? Or was he afraid, for what she was about to do?

Isobel realized, suddenly, that when she was dead, the compulsion would fall away, and he would mourn her all over again. Except, probably not.

She doubted Alaric would survive whatever Klaus intended to do with him.

That was the moment.

Isobel decided the best way to avoid causing any more pain, any more grief, for anyone, the only way to ensure she couldn't fuck up again, was to make sure she didn't survive this either. She didn't want to live in a world where she had destroyed Alaric over and over again. Where she could still be a liability to Elena.

There was, in the end, only one way to take herself out of the equation.

Strangely, the decision brought her peace. She hoped Klaus was telling the truth. That Elena would survive the ritual. In Isobel's heart, she entrusted her daughter to the care of the Salvatores.

No doubt ending her own life would be a swifter death than whatever Katherine would plan for her, once she knew she had been betrayed. If Katherine survived. Or Klaus, if he did.

Isobel held Alaric's eyes in her own for another long moment. Learning him, once more, learning him for the last time. The new lines in his beautiful face. The stubble on his jaw, light right now; he had shaved yesterday, Isobel thought, but not this morning.

She took a step back.

"He's all yours," she said, and turned away, before she would have to watch the look of confusion and fear on Alaric's face turn to agony. His pained groan was hard enough to hear.

Isobel blurred away, unwilling and unable to deal with the aftermath; and prepared for the second-last step in the plan.

* * *

At the door of the Lockwood house, Isobel caught Carol Lockwood's eye, and smiled. Carol invited her inside, without a moment's hesitation, and Isobel paused briefly.

"Forget you ever saw me," she said, and Carol's eyes blurred.

"Of course," she agreed, eyes already seeking out the next person to shake hands with. Viciously, Isobel wondered where Carol had come from; if she was from a founding family, Isobel would have met her, all those summers ago. Probably some little trailer-park bitch who had gotten herself knocked up in order to marry into the Lockwood family.

_Breathe, Isobel._

Katherine was close by, watching, waiting. Isobel crept up the stairs, and spent an indulgent moment exploring the upper floor, waiting for her moment. Listening for John's voice in the throng.

Ah. There he was.

Things had quieted down; Elena would be accepting some check, something for one of Miranda's ridiculous enthusiasms; the literacy thing, maybe. The historical society, the animal shelter. All eyes were on Elena at the front of the room.

There were fifty ways this could go wrong.

At the landing between the staircases, Isobel met John's eyes, and curled her lips into a smile. She glanced quickly at his hand, to make sure he was still wearing his brother's magic ring, the twin to Alaric's. Fear crossed John's face.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Isobel cocked her head. "I'm creating a distraction," she said, and launched herself at John's throat, tearing into him.

He tasted melancholy.

Isobel threw him down the stairs, already dying, and blanched at the sound of his neck snapping. He would be fine. And he would do anything for Elena.

Isobel slipped out into the chaos, out the door. After waiting for everyone to be asked to leave, she crossed to the place she and Katherine had left the car. Sure enough, Elena, dressed in Katherine's clothes, was asleep in the back seat. The driver still looked stoned. Again, Isobel felt that flash of resentment toward compelled humans.

Isobel opened the door. Checked Elena's pulse. It was weak. Rapid. A terrible bruise blossomed over her throat; Katherine had knocked her out by cutting off her oxygen supply for a moment.

Isobel wondered if Klaus really had the attention span to torture Katherine for five hundred years. She doubted it. Carefully, Isobel cut her finger against her fang, and slipped a little blood between Elena's lips.

The bruise began to fade, and Elena's pulse became stronger, slowed a little.

Isobel climbed into the passenger seat of the car. "Drive," she told the man beside her, without looking up. "Drive safely. Stay in the speed limits. I'll tell you when to turn."

"Yes," he agreed.

They were an hour out of Mystic Falls when Isobel's phone rang. Isobel glanced at Elena, still fast asleep in the back seat. She accepted the call, and steeled herself. "Are we good to go?"

Katherine sounded stressed. "I'm at your house," she said, "but we have to hurry. Damon knows your lodging tricks. It will take him all of twenty minutes to find out where you're staying."

Isobel nodded. "We'll be long gone before that." True, absolutely true; just not the 'we' Katherine was expecting.

"Good," Katherine said. A little out of breath. "How far are you?"

Isobel paused. "I'm sorry, Katherine," she said, and even meant it, a little. In the back seat, Elena began to stir. "I had to do what I was told. He wanted the moonstone and he wanted you."

What she didn't say was, _there is only one person with a chance of making it through this alive, and she's my daughter_. She didn't say _you've already had five centuries_.

She didn't say anything; just disconnected the call. Maddox would be causing Katherine unimaginable pain, by now, and Isobel didn't want to listen to her screams.

* * *

This part of Virginia was so pretty, this time of year. A fitting place to die. Isobel laid a hand over her necklace, and glanced behind her at Elena, who was sitting up, scowling.

"You have the Petrova fire," Isobel said.

Elena narrowed her eyes, and did not answer. With that expression on her face she looked so much like Katherine it was almost funny.

And she would never be a vampire. Never. The thought made Isobel immensely grateful.

She indicated the driver should enter the cemetery. When he had come to a stop, close to Isobel's fake grave, she nodded. "Look at me," she said.

He obeyed.

"Once we're out of the car, drive away. Forget everything that happened today."

"I'll forget," he agreed. Strangely – Isobel supposed he must have been a real gentleman – he opened his door, and climbed down from the seat, stumbling slightly, to open Elena's door for her. Elena still sat, arms crossed, eyes straight ahead.

Isobel narrowed her eyes. "Just because you can't be compelled, doesn't mean I can't force you to come with me," she said.

Petulant as all get-out, Elena climbed from the car, and followed behind. She was too curious to pout for long, anyway. "So is that what happened?" Elena asked. "You were compelled to betray Katherine?"

Isobel shrugged. "If I was, I couldn't tell you," she said.

Elena frowned. Not afraid; angry. Still more interested in protecting her friends than herself. Isobel found herself wishing Elena had Katherine's sense of self-preservation, instead of this martyr complex. "So you lied. You did find Klaus, didn't you? He knows where I am now. Are you taking me to him?"

Isobel stopped in front of her grave site.

Elena frowned, seeing the name on the headstone. "What is this?"

Isobel took a deep breath, and smiled. She felt strangely free. "My parents… your _grandparents_, they put it here when it became clear that the police weren't gonna find my body. They visit every week, and they bring flowers, even though there's no one buried here."

Elena watched Isobel closely, arms still tense at her sides. If this was going to be Elena's final memory of Isobel – and the horror would come soon, Isobel knew – she wanted Elena to see that she was more than just a monster, first.

She sighed, gazing at the faded flowers. "The Isobel they knew is dead. So maybe there's a part of me that's buried here, the… the human part, the part that I abandoned when I chose to become a vampire, the part that used to dream about the day that… she'd know her daughter."

And that girl – that Isobel – was never real. Elena didn't need to know it. Didn't need to know that the mother part of Isobel was relatively new. Elena was real; Elena was intensely real. Elena had no dress-up box where her heart should be; and her face right now was as raw as anything Isobel had ever seen. Hopeful, sad. Hurt.

The only Isobel who had been real was the wife she was to Alaric when they were first married; and this, _now_, the mother, the destroyer. Doing the last decent thing she would ever do. The first decent thing in a long time.

"What?" Elena asked, disbelieving.

Isobel shrugged. "… instead you got to meet the other part. The part that would betray her own flesh and blood."

In her pocket, Isobel's phone rang. When she answered it, Maddox spoke in his low growl. "I have Katherine and the moonstone. Is the doppelgänger safe?"

Isobel nodded. The moment of truth. "Yes," she said. Now she would find out whether Klaus was keeping his promise. Either way she had to pray that John knew what he was doing. That the Salvatores did.

Maddox's booming voice was a little gentler than usual. "Then let her go," he said.

Isobel wanted to cry. "Let her go?"

"Klaus has everything he needs for now. Your part is finished. You did what he compelled you to do."

"I'm done?" Isobel met Elena's eyes. Elena's hopeful, cautious eyes.

"You're done," Maddox promised.

Isobel ended the call, and took a deep breath.

Elena frowned. "Who was that?"

Isobel let her eyes close for a long moment, but thinking better of it, decided to let her last moment be spent drinking in her daughter's sweet face.

"I'm so sorry, Elena," she said. "That I was such a disappointment to you."

For a glorious second, she thought Elena was going to argue; but she couldn't, wouldn't wait to see if it would happen.

Isobel gripped the pendant around her neck, and pulled. Felt the chain tear at the skin on the back of her neck. For a moment, a brief, glorious moment, she thought perhaps it would be painless.

It wasn't painless.

Isobel felt her skin begin to blister, and smoke, and she smelled – _smelled_ – her flesh cook, and time stopped meaning very much, because surely it had only been a second or two but everything telescoped – it had been hours, days, since the rays of sun had begun to burn her.

As Isobel caught fire, heard the flames begin to lick, she saw Alaric's face, the way he was at the beginning – serenading her, asking her to stay the night; forgiving her for ruining his life – twice – saw him propose to her in front of a room full of people whose faces were joyful, if incredulous. Saw him learning to dance, for their wedding.

Only the good memories, only the best ones.

Isobel saw Aunt Gen, as well, dancing in the living room with her wine glass and making the records skip. She saw Aunt Gen dancing with John, too, John who had been such a beautiful boy, and so kind, giving her the marshmallows she knew he loved, just to make her smile. Kissing her for the very first time that second summer in Mystic Falls, asking Aunt Gen if he could take her to a party.

She saw John's angry tears the day Elena was born and Isobel handed her over to Miranda and Grayson, but she blinked the image away.

Isobel kept burning. She heard a terrible scream, and thought for a moment it was Elena. It wasn't Elena. It was Isobel herself.

Mostly, Isobel saw _her_. Elena. Saw her years into the future, older, married to a human man and surrounded by her own children. Bright and beautiful and always human, so human. All of this behind her; no Salvatores. No Klaus.

No Mystic Falls.

The light began to fade, and Isobel mostly saw nothing; and hoped she would see that and only that for all eternity.


	8. Epilogue

**Epilogue summary:**

Isobel is on the Other Side.

**Warnings**: Spoilers for season 3.

* * *

Isobel couldn't say, really, how long it took before she became aware once more that time was passing.

First, she became suddenly aware that Elena had, indeed, died in the ritual. And that John had traded his life for hers.

Her grief at this was surprisingly real, and surprisingly human.

For a while – minutes, hours, days – she knew that Alaric was drunk, grieving the loss of his Jenna, and yearning for Damon through the bars of a cellar she knew with certainty to be in the basement of the Salvatore boarding house. Damon was dying. Bitten by a werewolf. She could smell the sick sweat on his skin, feel the heat radiate from his body.

At some point a while later she became aware that Stefan, who was supposed to be looking after Elena, was high on blood and with Klaus, somewhere far from Mystic Falls.

Isobel knew she occasionally found herself a step behind Elena or a step behind Alaric, screaming, able to taste their grief in the back of her throat.

She watched Damon snap Alaric's neck in a bad mood and it was then that she discovered how emotion could be distilled into its purest essence, when there was nothing to pour it into; she attacked Damon with arms and legs and hands curled into claws, ineffectual as a gentle breeze, and then seemed to evaporate, spending days trying to reintegrate herself into a whole being.

Her own silence was the worst; the screaming, feeling herself screaming, and hearing nothing.

* * *

An indeterminable length of time had passed when Isobel became aware of another presence. A woman. Her hair long and thick and unkempt; her dress a thousand years old in style. She met Isobel's eyes one day while Isobel stood at the Mystic Grill, watching Alaric fail to drink his pain away.

"You can see me?"

The woman's nod was less of a shock than the fact that Isobel could hear herself speak.

"Yes," the woman answered. Her voice was soft. A gentle British accent played across her lips.

Her eyes left Isobel's, and settled on Alaric.

"He's my husband," Isobel blurted. Just grateful for the interaction. "He's… my husband."

The woman shook her head. "He _was_ your husband," she argued. "Now he is a man who has lost his way."

Isobel could only nod and wish the pain in her stomach would melt the flesh from her bones.

"I… did terrible things to him."

"Which is one of many reasons why you are here."

"Is it… hell?"

The woman's eyes were so, so cold. "It's a thousand times worse," she admitted. You'll watch them. Forever. You'll watch until everyone you have ever cared about is dead. And then you will replay and remember the worst moments for eternity."

Isobel wished desperately that she could slump against the bar. Crawl into Alaric's arms. "I… need to fix this," Isobel said.

The woman just watched Alaric.

"I'm Isobel," Isobel said. "Will you… talk to me? A while?"

The woman turned her head, slowly, and the look of contempt on her face gave Isobel the sense that she was shrinking, contracting somehow. And then she turned away again, crossed her arms. Watched Alaric for another long moment.

"My name is Esther," she said, "and I have very big plans for the man you call your husband. Very big plans indeed."

~FIN~


End file.
